In Search of a Namikaze
by Infernezor
Summary: The Fourth Hokage has died, leaving the Namikaze Clan seat without an heir. An ANBU is dispatched to find and recall the last of the Namikazes, Naruto. However, the Namikaze scion is reluctant to return. Unbeknownst to any of them, forces of men are gathering in secret to break the world in the name of peace with God directing their actions. AU.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Yea, things and stuff. I had the idea – as one does – and decided to put it down. I am continuing to work on my other projects as well, don't worry. I've had a bit of a set back with a few of them. (My computer died and I was forced to replace it, losing quite a few documents that I'm having to rewrite and gain the willingness to tackle them again.)**

**Enjoy the story. I think it's pretty decent, but then again, I am slightly biased in my assertions.**

**Edit: Welcome back ladies and gentlemen. For those of you that read the A/N in chapter five and decided to come back and see the writing style, I thank you and hope you enjoy it. I'm trying a more… Well I guess you'll see. I'll let you decide if you like it or not.**

**Chapter One**

**You Can't Be Serious**

It was a fine autumn day, the kind of autumn that bards and storytellers would often speak of when speaking of legends, but were seldom found in reality. The tree's leaves were in the middle of changing color, painting the world in dark hues of brown, burnt orange, and pink – the later being from Sakura trees that dotted the landscape like black spots on a cow.

A figure made its way along the path, making his way towards his intended destination with grim determination set in his shoulders, the posture of a man who has resigned himself to a fate he didn't like.

Sasuke could hear and smell them before he could see them. The toxic fumes the mass of humans made as they milled about below him was already making him sick. He shuddered to think of what it would be like to have to push his way through their jostling, greasy, sweat stained bodies.

He couldn't jump over the cloth buildings to avoid them, as that would attract way too much attention from the beady and annoying eyes on the ground. According to Jiraiya, Konoha's spymaster, he couldn't wait until nightfall to avoid them either, as the target would then be moving with a group and he was to be seen making contact with the target by as few people as possible.

Sasuke braced himself as he entered the circus, carefully picking his way through the masses, desperately trying to avoid touching any of them without actually looking like he was avoiding touching them. A difficult feat to be sure, but with seven years of dutiful service to Konoha, of countless hours a day spent honing his skills, the flame would take him before he failed a mission. He had a perfect record to think of.

It wasn't that he was afraid of dirtying his clothes with the contact. No, he wouldn't miss the tattered, boorishly brown civilian vest and trousers he was dressed in. He wouldn't lament the loss of the black, ripped traveling cloak, even if they were set on fire. But he needed the clothes to blend in and approach his target without drawing any undo attention.

Sasuke rounded a corner and saw the large, red and blue circus tent. His target, Naruto Namikaze, the former Hokage's estranged son, was supposed to be tendering his time at this…establishment, and it was Sasuke's job to retrieve the Namikaze scion.

Sasuke had memorized the Bio kept by Konoha on his target.

Age: 20, just under six feet tall, blond hair, blue eyes, Jinchuuriki – seal located on stomach.

Jinchuuriki, Sasuke felt, was a crude term applied to those who'd forcibly had demons shoved into them when they were children. The word Jinchuuriki was an archaic term that roughly meant 'Human sacrifice'. Although, Sasuke always wondered who the sacrifice was supposed to be. The seal used to imprison the demon had but one cost to use: the caster's soul. Logically, the sacrifice would be whoever was brave enough to kill themselves to protect those they loved. Logic, Sasuke reflected as he dodged around a particularly over-weight and heavily intoxicated man mumbling to himself in a drunken slur, was a fickle thing. It made perfect sense that when the Third Hokage sacrificed himself to stop the demon rampaging across his homeland, that he would be the glittering example of the word sacrifice. After all, the man had given up so much throughout his life to defend Konoha. The man had prevented Konoha's fall from wars, famine, and in the end, Demons.

All that logic would have been perfectly acceptable, except that Sasuke knew how the Jinchuuriki were treated. He'd seen the abuse they suffered with his own eyes. First, during Sasuke's youth, he had witnessed the distain, the harsh words, and the occasional acts of physical violence with which they treaded Naruto – Konoha's Jinchuuriki. And later, during Sasuke's genin examination, he saw the result of an even harsher environment could produce in Gaara. The 'boy' who'd entered the Chunin exams could barely control his homicidal impulses. If that maniac represented Jinchuuriki everywhere then it wouldn't have been a stretch to draw the line between them and the demons they contained.

Jinchuuriki sacrificed so much of themselves, intentional or not, to make sure that those around them remained safe. That was a sacrifice of a different sort, told by a different person. Sadly, desperately sadly, it remained unnoticed by too many.

Sasuke suspected that the only reason Naruto didn't turn out similarly to Gaara was because he left Konoha, leaving an angry father, a disbelieving mother, and younger sibling behind.

Sasuke had wondered that when he'd first received the mission as to why Naruto's younger sister wasn't sent in his stead. A familial relationship would no doubt have been more convincing than an armed one. However, as an ANBU captain, Sasuke had been ordered by his new Hokage to retrieve the Namikaze heir to take his place as the family head and not ask questions.

The succession was another thing that had ladened Sasuke mind during his travels across Konoha's borders, trailing the Namikaze's passage with a dogged determination. Normally, the succession of the clan head would have passed to Heruko Uzumaki, Naruto's younger sister. However, Naruto had made Genin before his departure, which had qualified him for the title. Minato Namikaze never made any alternate arrangements for the clan, nor had he dismissed Naruto from the family before his untimely death. Heruko had been named the successor to the Uzumaki clan directly after her birth. Kushina never survived labor. Heruko never met her mother.

The funeral for the Uzumaki head had been a somber affair, her husband reportedly not leaving the memorial for three days – not even for food or drink.

The Fourth had died of a weak heart, an unusual affliction for a ninja to succumb to. A ninja's chakra flow worked also worked as an improved immune system that would clear out any illness or diseases without conscious thought. It was usually other ninjas that ninja had to worry about.

Konoha had been on edge until her best medical doctors had confirmed that no foul play was involved after a thorough examination. Iwa, who the Fourth had almost single handedly ended the third Great War, was under heavy suspicion of breaking the truce and assassinating their leader. In the end, after a thorough examination of Konoha's finest doctors, it had appeared as though the greatest warrior Konoha had ever produced could die just like any other man. It was a sobering thought.

Sasuke parted the flap to the massive tent and entered. The near toxic air became stifling. The poor air circulation the tent boasted combined with overstuffed and heat exhausted humans mixed to form a most unpleasant atmosphere for the ANBU captain. The other simpletons in the tent seemed to be enjoying it however. Laughing, talking amongst themselves, milling about aimlessly, slapping each other on the back, and generally making fools of themselves, the circus goers seemed not to notice the formerly breathable air they were united in their endeavor to pollute.

Sasuke stopped Enhancing himself, finding that he couldn't bear the environment with his magnified senses. Enhancement was the term that Ninja used to describe using chakra to increase the users sight, hearing, touch, strength, speed, and smell. A ninja could exceed what was commonly thought to be humanly possible with chakra, such as being able to lift boulders over ten times their size with ease. Tsunade, one of the legendary Sanin, was well known for her ability to enhance her physical strength even further. Sasuke had once heard a story recounted by an inn bard regaling his audience with a story of Tsunade, during one of her drunken escapades, throwing a house at her teammate. Engaging that behemoth in a physical exchange was tantamount to signing one's own death warrant with a cheerful grin on the face.

Sasuke glanced about the tent, looking for the mop of blonde hair among the crowd. There were twenty rows down and fifteen deep worth of seats split into three columns that sat in front of a large, pine stage. Pine, Sasuke suspected, because it was lightweight and easy to take apart, pick up and move. Sasuke suspected that was the exact reason why they chose the material.

'_Approximately 900 people.' _Sasuke thought with some annoyance, his eyes moving quickly from head to head with the speed of a highly trained killer, spying out his target.

He could have activated his Sharingan - his ocular ability that gave him enhanced vision and processing powers among other gifts - to expedite his search, but he couldn't risk the surge of easily detectable power would release. If he spooked Naruto, he would be difficult to track. Genin or not, Jiraiya had said that following the boy's erratic movement was a rather difficult task, even for his massive spy Namikaze seemed to have a talent at evasion.

The lights above the audience dimmed, leaving only the main lights on stage. A strange, anticipatory hush fell across the crowd as they took their seats, a clinging silence like spider webs on a wall. After a moment, when the crowd was leaning forward slightly, trying to get a better look at the stage in case they were missing something, a solitary figure dressed in a traditional black yukata stepped out, pulling a stool carelessly behind behind him with one hand, and holding a lute in the other, his sandaled feet beating a quick, staccato rhythm as he walked. He looked as if where on the verge of bursting into a graceful dance. Sasuke raised an eyebrow in surprise. The musician was unmistakable, even if it had matured with age. What was surprising to Sasuke was the instrument. Elderly women on their front porch usually played lutes as they attempted to creatively avoid their husbands, not by young men on large stages in front of large crowds.

Sasuke blinked owlishly, glancing around at the crowd. The previously rambunctious crowd had transformed into a quiet, attentive bunch. They apparently were expecting something from Naruto because Sasuke had never seen such a reverent reaction in a crowd for a pre-show. The stage was too large to be a simple musicians or storyteller's. Its intended purpose was probably a gymnastics or acrobatic show, given the width and depth of it.

Naruto propped his seat in the center of the stage, stared at it as if measuring its worth, then set himself languidly on it, his unruly mess of blond hair hanging down over his eyes casting them into a deep and impenetrable shadow as he fiddled with his instrument, making final tuning adjustments with the delicate care a mother would take in raising her beloved child.

Blond was a poor word to portray the musician's hair, radiant would have been far more apt – far more fitting – a word to use to describe the sun-kissed golden strands of hair that stuck up in oddly placed spikes on his head. In that moment, he more resembled his father when he was focus on a seal than any other time.

Apparently satisfied with his work Naruto struck a cord, letting the staccato sound the instrument made wash over the crowd. It was a comfortable sound that reminded Sasuke of the times when he was off duty, relaxing by a waterside or sitting on the Hokage mountain looking out over Konoha after a particularly long mission.

After a few more hesitant notes, Naruto stopped and looked up at the crowd. The Namikaze seemed to lock eyes with everyone at the same time. His sapphire blue eyes reflecting the stage lights, somehow enhancing the depth of the dancing pools of emotion that held the masses spellbound purely with his force of will.

"Once upon a time, there was a great ninja." Naruto began, his voice calm and entrancing, floating over them like silk strands over bare skin. Sasuke's disbelief mounted. It seemed as if Naruto really was just going to sit there and play a song while telling a story. "It was in a time where there were no villages," he began, "and clans held the reigns of power in the world of shadows, when few not of the bloodline had a chance to become a ninja. Yet this man, a true prodigy of great talent, did. He fought in many battles, he mastered ancient techniques and became both feared and respected among his peers. Yet he vied not for the power, riches or glory like his comrades did. He was devoted to his art and aimed to truly understand it. Because of that he decided to learn the utmost secrets of it."

Naruto plucked and strummed his instrument as he spoke, his eyes seemingly changing from a bright blue to a deeper, electric blue. Dancing and entwining themselves around each other like lovers on their wedding night, the cadence of his voice and instrument weaved and complimented each other perfectly. Sasuke noted a light smoke haze and a taste of incense in the air. It didn't detract from the story, it only added to the mystique.

"He soon realized that the lore was vast and decided that simply learning it all wouldn't be possible for a man in one life time. Therefore he meditated on the problem until he had found a solution. 'I shall learn the strongest, the most powerful and most sublime of them, for is it not the essence of the ninja?' Deciding on the course of action he followed it with zeal.

Scouring the land for the most powerful of arts he found monks of the North, who were rumored to break the masters of arms with their bare hands, and learned their style.

His talent was great, his dedication even greater - soon, the monks called him their master and begged him to stay and take his rightful place. The man declined, for his journey was far from over.

Next he searched the shinobi world for the most perfect of Ninjutsu. He encountered the clans of bloodline gifts, the monsters and spirits of power and men akin to Gods who made the heavens tremble and he learned their secrets until he was even stronger than them. His legend grew so much every noble wanted his services and every ninja clan offered him daughters, riches and position - as many as he wanted, and as much as he wanted - just so he would stay with them. Yet he refused."

The images Naruto's story painted were so vivid - so real - that Sasuke could almost see the young ninja learning martial arts from the monks of the north - dressed in their billowing, magnificent robes that blew so majestically in the windy mountains that they resided - within the smoky haze that blanked the theater, like a sheet over a bed. He imagined the amorphous haze twisting itself into a fierce demon, glaring with eyes as dark and chilling as a winter night and teeth like sharpened swords, as the ninja impetuously demanded to learn from the immortal beast whose knowledge spanned generations.

"For he cared not for riches, honor or glory of the clans - as those he soon realized were just trappings of luxury. He cared not for the morality and justice of the lords - for it was hollow and self absorbed. Determined more than ever, he moved on in his quest to find the last part of the puzzle.

He scoured the ancient halls, walked through battlefields, visited monasteries, bargained with demons and bartered with spirits in his search for understanding, meeting naught but despair. For while Taijutsu could be judged by grace and efficiency, Ninjutsu by power and effect, how was one to judge an illusion?"

Naruto smiled, twanging his strings to emphasize the word 'illusion'. The actions had the desired effect. The crowd leaned even further in, desperate for the answer.

"Years passed and the despair set its claws deep into his heart at the fruitlessness of his quest. No monk could aid him, no onmyouji advise him, no ninja teach him and no spirit whisper the secrets sufficient enough to give him the prize he looked for. Dismayed, exhausted and bitter he came to a city of vice seeking to drown his sorrow in any way he could, seeking even a briefest of respites. And there he met a courtesan named Yuya.

She was an oiran, a woman of low station sold by her parents into the trade as a young girl and taught beauty and pleasure by shrewd eyed matrons of her tea house. While no exquisite beauty she was good at her job and her patrons felt naught but bliss in her arms, which she drew a measure of pride from. It was a small pride most would scoff at, but it was hers and she cherished it.

Therefore when the ninja came to her, bitter and drunk with both wine and disappointment, she took his coins and led him to her bed. But the ninja was inconsolable, still bemoaning his failure, only despair lingering in his heart. The courtesan's pride was small but strong. The ninja didn't want to share his burden but the oiran was determined and crafty."

Naruto paused his story, going through a few slow cords on his instrument as he smiled a pleasant smile at his audience.

Sasuke was now eyeing the haze cautiously. He wasn't just imagining the smoke playing out the story. It wasn't just a trick of the eyes that depicted the ninja drinking himself into oblivion at a two-bit bar. The vapor, that was now much thicker than before, twisted and danced with Naruto's story, rendering realistic scenes to the audience.

Naruto continued his story.

"When the ninja finally shared his great grief with her, the courtesan looked at him and laughed loudly. Enraged, shamed and bitter, the ninja threatened to take her life for mocking him. The courtesan just smiled and said 'If you do so, my lord, you will never learn the secret of the greatest illusion of all.' The ninja was confused. What could a lady of the night, of all people, know of ninja arts?

But then he was tired and looked for years. So he relented and demanded the secret of her, lest he take her head and life with it. The oiran smiled serenely and told him she would share the secret but on one condition. For the three days, he was to follow her wishes without question or hesitation. The ninja agreed.

'If you have enemies I will cut them down. If you have oppressors I shall dispose of them. If you need treasures or gems of knowledge I can find them for you without fail.' he said.

The oiran nodded, and told him to be there the next day. When the sun rose the ninja was there with sword on his back and shuriken in his hand. The courtesan led him to a garden by the teahouse. Confused, the ninja said nothing when she sat and bade him to look at the birds with her until afternoon. The ninja did as asked. As the noon passed she asked him to join her in a meal and ninja complied, passing the time with song, wine and music.

The very next day, when he came again, ready to do her bidding, weapons in hand, she asked him to follow her into the city. Thinking she needed a bodyguard, he walked behind her diligently while the courtesan spent the whole day buying the finest jade combs and picking the most beautiful kimono. The ninja followed her like a shadow as she went about her day until they came back to the teahouse, where she bade him to eat with her once again.

When the third sunrise came, she requested for him to join her in a song. The ninja was most distressed - he did not know how to sing. The courtesan laughed and bade him to sing regardless. His word was his honor and as such he did as ordered.

When the sun rose the next day the ninja demanded the secret, at which courtesan said nothing. Enraged, he decided to draw his sword, but despite the shame he experienced, he felt reluctant to do so. He tried to unleash one of his countless mighty Ninjutsu at the smiling woman, but the techniques seemed to fade before they were even cast. Helplessly torn between shame a man suffers in bed when he'd unable to preform, despair that only a woman whose lost her child can know, and such a great reluctance that God himself would think twice, the ninja stood before the kneeling woman."

Naruto stopped his music, his eyes loosing the near cheeky dance they had before –as if he were delighting in the telling of his story, no matter the audience's age – his eyes dimmed, becoming a dull, denim blue, his voice dropping into a sober and subdued tone.

"Yuya smiled knowingly to the ninja. 'This, my lord, is the greatest, the most sublime illusion of them all and its secret.' she said softly, her voice like clear bells ringing on a snowy day. And the ninja was enlightened."

The room fell into a deep silence. No one dared move and break the unnatural stillness. The opaque covering ceased its writhing imagery falling uncomfortably still. It was as if the mist understood that its beautiful form was no longer wanted or appreciated, and was subdued by the great strain.

When the weight of the tension in the room seemed almost unbearable, Naruto slid off the stool, grabbed it by the seat, and left the stage through the back where he'd come from, dragging his pervious perch unceremoniously behind him.

Sasuke frowned at the odd ending to the story. It seemed… incomplete to him, almost as if Naruto had gotten bored and had decided to end it at the climax instead of following through into the falling action. The crowd didn't seem to share his opinion. For the most part, they were quiet and contemplative. There was the odd person standing up and bustling to gather their things, but they were the minority.

Sasuke slipped quietly out the back as the gymnasts took the stage. His target would doubtlessly be resting in the back after his performance. It would be the perfect time to contact and if necessary subdue the Genin.

Carefully making his way around the outside of the large performance tent to the rear, Sasuke spotted a small, personal tent with its flap hanging open like the drooping maw of a man who'd suffered from a terrible fall and had never quite recovered.

'_People don't leave their tents wide open to the world unless someone is home to rebuff unwanted intruders.'_

Sasuke slunk over to the side of Naruto's presumed tent on light, cat-like feet, his passing not even making indentations in the ground as he made his way. Enhancing his ears with chakra, Sasuke leaned in, so that he could spy on the occupants.

"It took me forever to find you. You aren't that easy to track you know." A voice Sasuke did not recognize was saying, speaking a slightly frustrated tone. "I finally find you, and now you want me to leave like I'm some common tram-" The voice petered off distractedly.

"You shinobi are a most interesting lot." The voice came again, elevated to make sure that Sasuke knew that he had been discovered. Sasuke cursed lightly. He wasn't used to being found out so quickly, or called out verbally when he'd been caught.

Sasuke entered the tent slowly. The interior walls of the tent were a rich cream color over a bare, grassy floor. An open chest sat in the left corner that had wrinkle and crumpled clothes, as well as an odd assortment of pictures and notepads lying on top. The lute Naruto had used in his show was propped up against the chest haphazardly, like an unfinished thought. Naruto – still in his performance clothes – sat across from a youth in a gray tank top and black trousers, a table with a bottle of liquid separating the two as the blinked at him questionly.

Sasuke sized the stranger up in an instant with the professional eye of a ninja. The stranger was slightly younger than himself, probably around nineteen, a bit on the short side but very well built. Compact muscles were on proud display due to the none-existence of his shirt's sleeves. Sasuke dismissed him as a ninja; he didn't have the bearing or bloody air that clung to ninja like gum to the bottom of a shoe.

"How did you know I was there?" Sasuke asked, locking his coal black eyes with the stranger's light brown.

"As I said, you shinobi are a most interesting lot. You walk without making a sound. But you can always tell when one is near. When you guys are near, the earth itself falls silent."

Sasuke realized that the stranger was most likely a monk. The clipped and heavily accented way he spoke was common in the northern providences. It would also explain his muscles physique and how he was able to detect Sasuke's approach.

Simply put, Ninjas created chakra by mixing both spiritual and physical energy in equal parts to use their techniques. Monks, however, used each form of energy as a separate force. The effects weren't as grand or as powerful, but it still made them plenty dangerous if you weren't familiar with fighting them. The trouble was usually getting one to fight. They were a passive lot by religion.

If he was a monk, he was a strange one. The 'monk' didn't shave his head, as was traditional of his order. Brown hair hung down to his shoulders from his head in a wavy mess.

"May I help you, Mr. ANBU?" Naruto asked, gazing at him wide eyed over the rim of his glass drink poised at his lips, purple liquid hovering just in front of his lips. Sasuke noticed that the Namikaze's eye color had seemed to change yet again, reflecting a midnight blue in the flickering candlelight. HE straightened, addressing the Namikaze fully, dismissing the meek act for exactly what it was. An act.

"Namikaze Naruto, you are to return with me to Konoha by order of the Hokage." Sasuke recited formally.

"I'll pass." Naruto replied quickly, the air of timidity he'd been projecting vanishing like a passing thought as he set the drink down and laced his fingers in his lap, regarding Sasuke with intent, azure eyes. "Tell my father that I'm not interested in what he has to say. All that was to be said has been said. He made his position to me quite clear when last we spoke."

Sasuke glanced at the stranger for signs of surprise that Naruto was related to the most powerful ninja of Konoha. There were none. Whoever this brown haired monk was, he knew that Naruto was a Hokage's son.

Sasuke grimaced internally, not letting any of his emotions reflect on his face. His next mission might be one of assassination if the monk proved to have loose lips.

"By the way, mate, the name is Jango, not that you bothered asking or anything." Jango said, speaking with a strange cheerful drawl, the accent that had at first pegged him as a northern monk had vanished as if he it never been. Replaced by a southern slur. Sasuke contained his surprise at the sudden change. Ninjas were known for being able to throw their voice to confuse their opponents in battle, but rarely did they go so far in their vocal tricks to bother with memorizing different accents. It was a clever, if mostly useless, way to blend in.

"What kind of a name is Jango?" Sasuke asked before he could stop himself.

Jango just grinned while Naruto shook his head in apparent exasperation. It seemed as though this wasn't a question he should have asked.

"My kind of name." Jango said, the same knowing smile on his face. "It means playfully mad. I think we're going to be good friends, Mr. ANBU."

Sasuke didn't ask the question he most wanted to ask, 'how can you be playfully mad'? That was most likely exactly what the buffoon wanted.

"At least you've shown that much sense." Naruto said gruffly, proving that Jango had had this conversation with others before him.

Sasuke turned back to Naruto, carefully replacing his previous air of authority with a new one, attempting to regain control over the conversation he'd accidently fumbled so quickly.

"I'm sorry, Lord Namikaze, but it was not your father who requested you."

Naruto narrowed his eyes at the ANBU captain. Although there was no killing intent to the glare, Sasuke couldn't help but feel slightly disconcerted by the gaze.

"What do you mean?" Naruto demanded, his eyes as hard as stone.

"It's as I was tellin' ya before you cut me off." Jango said casually, swirling his drink idly in front of him while he raised an eyebrow at Naruto. "Stuff's been going on with all the stuffy folk up at the big cities."

"No." Naruto corrected archly. "You were telling me about a bunch of things you've stolen lately."

"Traded very evenly for." Jango corrected forcefully, ceasing his drink spinning. " It was just as fair a trade as I made you."

Naruto sighed, a weary resignation entering his voice.

"I don't remember any trades."

"That's because you haven't noticed the nice rock I've left in place of your clock beside your bed sheets in your chest that those clothes over there are so wonderfully crowning." Jango replied cheerily, grinning toothily at the Namikaze heir.

"A rock." Naruto said dully, rubbing at his right temple with the hand that wasn't still holding his drink.

"A nice one." Jango confirmed, nodding proudly, quite satisfied with himself.

"Excuse me." Sasuke cut in, not liking being ignored. He had duty to preform, that and the duo's antics were becoming irksome.

"You're excused." Jango said curtly, waving him off haughtily as if he were a noble and Sasuke a common serving boy. Sasuke resisted the urge to snap the ingrates neck with his bare hands.

"You were speaking of my father as if he is no longer the Hokage. Has he named a successor then?" Naruto asked, returning his attention back to Sasuke with a bemused expression. "That was awfully quick of him. Tired of the paperwork already?"

"Your father is dead." Sasuke responded with the dull resonance of a rock hitting dirt. He had never been very good at dancing around metaphorical bushes. He preferred to torch them and then stride through their ashes. It was much faster and simpler.

Naruto eyebrows rose sharply, his eye color seeming to dim to a dark blue, but no tears came like Sasuke had predicted. Apparently the fallout Naruto had with his family hadn't been overly exaggerated with the retelling, like countless uninspired stories had.

"How?" Naruto asked, regaining his air of composure.

"Heart failure. Tsunade Senju has already been crowned as the Hokage, your father's replacement. You are to accompany me and take your place as the Namikaze's clan head." Sasuke responded.

"You can't be serious." Naruto snorted derisively. Then he gestured from where he sat to his surroundings, saying a slightly scornful voice, "You want a circus storyteller and part time performer to take the place of a prestigious clan head? Has Konoha lost its mind in my absence?"

Naruto scowled, biting off, "Get my sister to do it. She's old enough by now and I'm sure that she'll be pleased to do it."

Sasuke didn't budge. He'd been ordered not to.

"Your father made no arrangements for her to take his place. Besides, she has already taken the head of the Uzumaki clan. She cannot hold two titles. You are the only choice."

"I don't want the title." Naruto said bluntly, folding his arms and furrowing his brows in thought. It wasn't a petulant expression like a toddler would make after he didn't get what he wanted. It was the expression a man got when he was being cornered and was desperately trying to figure a way out.

"I was instructed not to care." Sasuke said blandly, fingers twitching towards the seal tattooed on the inside of his wrist where he kept his sword. If a fight broke out, he intended to subdue them quickly with the blunt edge.

'_The monk will have to go first. Namikaze was only of Genin skill when he left and-'_

"I thought that was a general requirement." Jango said suddenly, shattering the tension like a hammer crushes ice.

"What?" Naruto asked distractedly, glancing at his friend before returning his attention to the Uchiha.

"Not caring." Jango elaborated, gesturing vaguely. "I thought that it was a general rule for a ninja not to care. Cut down the enemy and what not."

"That's…not entirely it." Naruto said slowly, his mind returning to the fuzzy place a mind went to bury pain.

Sasuke refrained from snorting out loud, opting to vent his derision with thought, the higher form of wit.

'_What would a Genin know about cutting down opponents?'_

Naruto sighed.

"What would I be listed as if I refused to return with you?"

"Assuming you somehow managed to overpower me," Sasuke said, being sure to convey through both his voice and body language just how much of a bad idea that would be, "If I don't send in a report to Konoha within the next two days, you will be listed as an A rank retrieval in the bingo book." It was untrue. Sasuke actually had a week before he was supposed to have contacted Naruto. The blonde, however, didn't need to know that.

Sasuke saw Naruto glance at the exit, apparently considering attempting to run. It would have been amusing, if it were not for the fact that Naruto was to be returned unharmed.

There was a few moments pause as Naruto considered his options, eventually arriving at an answer he didn't like.

"I'll go with you so long as we make a few stops along the way." Naruto said, resignation seeping from his voice.

Sasuke nodded, like a sage agreeing with a young child \. The Hokage figured that the heir would have a few things to put in order before he would return.

"Well that settles it then." Jango said, jumping to his feet, picking up a fedora and placing it on his head from where it had been resting on table by the bottle. With another smooth motion he whipped a duster off from the back of the chair he'd been on and shoved his arms through the sleeves. "Let's be off."

"You're coming?" Naruto asked, looking up at the brunette from where he remained sitting, perfectly content with not moving.

"Of course." Jango said, throwing him a lopsided grin. "It was time I was moving on from this place anyhows. People disagreeing with my trades, you see."

Naruto rose wearily, as if he were many years older than twenty.

"Give me a moment alone with my friend and then a few more to change, Mr. ANBU. I promise I won't run." Naruto asked.

Sasuke nodded curtly, striding from the tent, discreetly placing a detection seal on the flap of the tent as he passed through. The seal was designed to lace chakra throughout the object it was placed onto – in this case a tent – and pulse chakra if there was a disturbance such as a few slashes to the rear and a quick back escape.

Once Naruto was satisfied that the ANBU was out of hearing range, Naruto turned to face his friend who was already standing beside him with that same lopsided grin on his face.

"You wanna know the real reason I'm coming with you?" Jango said.

"Why?" Naruto asked.

"I thought of you happy in a comfy bed, resting and relaxing, spending the rest of your life sipping tea and reading papers while people bring you food and maids rub your toes and stuff."

"And?"

"And I just couldn't leave you to a fate like that… I'm too good a friend to let a mate of mine die in such a terrible situation."  
"Comfortable?" Naruto asked, slightly incredulously.

"No. Boring." Jango answered, his grin widening.

Naruto sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose. He was getting a headache with all that was going on today. First Jango, then the performance, then Jango, then the ANBU, and now it was back to Jango again. It was like some sort of twisted cosmic joke that God was playing on him.

"You know that hat looks ridiculous." Naruto said, opening his eyes and glancing meaningfully at Jango's fedora.

"Fortunately, I can change hats," Jango said, "While you, sir, are stuck with that face."

**Line Break**

Sasuke stood outside the tent, diligently awaiting his seal to go off and force him to chase the Namikaze down as a cat would a mouse. It surprised him slightly when Jango came out, a small smile touching his lips. Jango's smile only widened when he saw Sasuke standing a couple of meters away. He hastened his step so as to draw up to the Uchiha.

"My, you're looking down right grumpy there, Mr. ANBU." Jango said, greeting the stiff backed Uchiha amiably.

Sasuke glanced at Jango briefly before returning his attention back to the tent. It was entirely possible that Jango was attempting to distract him to allow the Namikaze a head start.

"Naruto is getting changed." Jango said by way of explanation, bouncing up to Sasuke. Once he was beside the Uchiha, Jango turned and face Naruto's tent, posturing himself to imitate Sasuke's straight-backed and rigid posture. Jango, Sasuke had observed, seemed not to walk so much as skip from place to place.

"hmm." Sasuke grunted. Uchiha's were never known for their eloquence, only their efficiency in battle.

"Don't be like that, Mr. ANBU." Jango said cheerfully, gazing at Sasuke out of the corner of his eye, still maintaining Sasuke's posture.

"My name is Sasuke. You might as well use it." Sasuke grunted.

Jango nodded wisely, the feather in his fedora bouncing lightly in the air with the movement.

"So, what you bothering my mate Naruto for anyways? I get that you want him to be your leader or something but why does it have to be him?" Jango asked, his accent changing to something more Eastern hemisphere, Sasuke couldn't quite place it.

After a moment's pause, Sasuke said evenly. "It's as I said in the tent, he's the last of the Namikaze line."

"Oh, I gets that." Said Jango. "It's the fact that his little sister can't just take the position that's got me confused. As the only real member of the Namikaze house, Naruto won't be managing too much, what with the lack of people to manage and all. So I can't imagine that it' be that much of a bother for his sister to do it instead of draggin ol' Naruto down to the city."

Sasuke raised an eyebrow as he turned to face the smaller man, an expression of great tolerance scrolled across his face like the ink of a seal was written on paper.

"You don't know much about politics, do you?" He asked.

"Nah, that's for the fancy people in the funny hats." Jango said easily, waving a dismissive hand in the air.

Sasuke frowned.

"If Naruto were not to return, then the house seat would remain empty." He explained.

"And what's the problem with that?" Jango asked with what Sasuke could see was a purposefully blank expression. "It's just a seat. I ain't ever heard of anyone getting harmed by a seat."

Sasuke decided to play along. Until the Namikaze emerged from the tent, he had time to kill.

"Because if the seat remains empty it will invite power struggles." Sasuke said grimly, returning his attention back to the tent. "Clans would vie for the power the empty position would give them. They wouldn't intend it, indeed they may believe they are helping, but that would only harm Konoha. The Namikaze clan is a very new power to Konoha…"

Sasuke's speech ground to a slow halt. Frowning, he said, "I'm explaining this all wrong. Allow me to start from the beginning.

Becoming Hokage automatically instates individual's family for Clan status. When Minato Namikaze became Hokage, a new clan was born. What makes this important is that clans have say in how Konoha is run. That tangled path of politicking to see who would claim the unprotected seat would lead to anarchy as my home tears itself apart."

Jango hummed as he thought about what Sasuke said.

"It seems to me." Jango said slowly after a few moments. "That anarchy wears two face, both the creator and destroyer. Destroyers go around and topple empires; make a canvas of clean rubble where creators then can build another world. Rubble, once achieved, makes further ruins' means irrelevant."  
Sasuke blinked at the depth of what the man was saying.

"What do yo-"

"Away with our explosives, then!" Jango declared passionately.

"Away with our destroyers! They have no place within our better world. But let us raise a toast to all our bombers, all our bastards, most unlovely and most unforgivable.  
Let's drink their health… Then meet with them no more."

Sasuke blinked again. "That was rather thoughtful." He said.

"That was what my pa used to say. He was in the war and all." Jango said softly, a subdued expression on his face as he gazed at the ground

Then Jango smiled suddenly, and said cheerfully, "Me? I try to avoid having thoughts. They lead to other thoughts, and –if you're not careful – those lead to actions. Actions make you tired. I have this on rather good authority from someone who once read it in a book."

Sasuke snorted lightly. Jango was very much like how he remembered Naruto in his youth, if a bit more thoughtful and a fair deal more eloquent. But the Naruto he'd seen on stage and in the tent had been… detached, in some way. It was like he was carrying a heavier weight than he had been before.

"How long as Naruto been so solemn?" Sasuke asked. It rankled him that, although they technically grew up together, Naruto had changed so much over a mere seven years. People, in Sasuke's experience, didn't change much or – if they did change- they didn't change that quickly. Which implied that Naruto had always been the way he was now. Quite the contrast of personalities; happy go lucky versus the wary future leader.

"Oh, Naruto has always been solemn as long as I've known him, but when he's at his best, there's a smirk underneath." Jango said, smiling.

Sasuke pulsed his chakra to make sure that the seal was functioning properly. Naruto had been in that tent supposedly changing for a long time.

"You're a bit strange, you know?" Sasuke asked, after he confirmed that the seal was perfectly fine.

"The ways of Jango are mysterious and incomprehensible." Jango said, nodding sagely.

**Line Break**

Naruto pulled the sleeves of his familiar, gray, black-trimmed jacket over his arms slowly. The jacket was a gift from Jango when they first met and Naruto had kept it in good repair throughout the years. Jango's recant of the tale would be a fair bit different than his own, of course. But then again, just about everything Jango did would be different from anyone else.

The way he appropriated things, for example. Jango didn't steal things exactly. Jango traded things that he felt were of equal value to what he wanted. A red rock with orange striations running throughout its core in crisscrossing patterns had replaced his clock. He'd found it while he was reorganizing his traveling chest.

Naruto had sealed the lute and the rest of his possessions into one of his scrolls that he usually kept tucked into his pouch on his belt that currently held his orange cargo pants up.

Jango had mocked him for his choice in coloring for a time when they had first partnered up. 'A terrible ninja color', 'Travesty of fashion everywhere', 'you must be an embarrassment to ninja in general', were a few of the contemptuous phrases that Jango had thrown his way. Those had stopped after Naruto had managed to sneak a few snakes and a couple of other poisonous critters into Jango's sleeping bag. On the rare occasion, the sleeping back had already been occupied. No, Naruto could be quite stealthy when he wanted to be. Evading Jiraiya's spy network for as long as he had wasn't luck or chance.

The fun had all had come to an end now. The heavy mantelpiece of boredom and aristocracy was being set uncomfortably around his neck. Jango would probably make sure he choked on it. That's what friends were for after all.

Naruto stepped out of the tent, spotting Jango conversing with the overly formal ANBU.

"So," the ANBU said, "You traded a dead man's scarf for another dead man's sword. But… the sword itself belonged to someone dead, so by the same logic-"

"Don't try," Naruto said, striding towards them. "Logic doesn't work on Jango."

"I bought a seal against it off a traveling fortune-teller," Jango explained. "It lets me add two 'n' two and get a pickle."

Jango turned to face Naruto.

"Pack up your stuff?" He asked.

Naruto nodded, patting his pouch gently.

Jango smiled, saying, "That's great, mate. I always wanted to visit Zentin."

"Zentin…" Sasuke said slowly. "It wouldn't do for the head of the Namikaze estate to be seen there." '_Or the Uchiha head for that matter.' _Sasuke thought.

"You should been seen somewhere… grander."

"Grander?" Naruto smirked. "Mr. ANBU, until roughly twenty years ago, Zentin was an unofficial capital of smugglers from the whole Fire Nation and, in some cases, beyond. It doesn't look it, but trust me - there is a lot of money in that place."

How do you know that anyway?" The ANBU looked at Naruto curiously.

"Poker."

Sasuke blinked.

Naruto shuffled the deck of cards that he seemed to draw from thin air with a faint smile.

"Money. Cards. I need money if I want to play with the big boys in Konoha."

"You're the head of the Namikaze." Sasuke pointed out dryly. "You don't need to worry about the amount of money a few games of poker could bring you. The patients on some of your father's seals are still bringing in a sizable amount of money I've heard."

Naruto frowned, and made the cards disappear back to the nothingness they'd come from.

"I'd rather have some money not linked to my families accounts when I enter Konoha. I prefer to err on the side of caution."

Sasuke's brows met in a frown. "How long will this take? We need to make it back to Konoha soon."

"No more than a week or so." Naruto said airily, turning on his heels and walking way.

"Oi!" Jango called out after him. "Aren't you going to tell your boss that you're leaving?"

Naruto shook his head, not even bothering to slow down. "Gensen should know of my reputation by now to understand that I leave when I wish."

Jango shrugged and broke into a jog to catch up to his friend, Sasuke shadowing just behind him.

**Line Break**

The three of them had made camp that evening in a small clearing that they'd found just off the trail. Their separate tents stood like the three stars of Orion, in so much that they would disappear with the dawn.

Naruto had volunteered for the first watch of the night. He sat by the campfire that was far removed from the tents so as not to accidently set them aflame with a stray ember or spark, staring at the remains of his unfinished dinner without really seeing. His mind was elsewhere, turning and falling through his quagmire of memories.

Naruto stood and walked into the forest to gather some wood, but not far enough away that he wouldn't sense an intruder. He stooped and picked up a piece wrist sized branch and tucked it under one arm. His motions were precise, his face blank, his eyes far away. As he continued to gather wood, his motions became slower and slower, like a machine winding down. Eventually, he stopped completely and stood for a long minute, as still as stone. Only then did his composure break. And even when there was no one there to see, he hid his face in his hands and wept quietly. His body racked with wave on wave of heavy silent sobs. Crimson coloring bled into his hair, as blood would pool and drift around a corpse in water.

Tears of mourning fell like the cascading tides of a waterfall onto the rocky surfaces of his hands.

**End of Chapter One**

**A/N: I rather enjoy Jango's personality. It's quite close to my own. Sorry if that bothers anyone.**

**Edit: In case those who were wondering what changes I made, I put a much more modernistic linguistic twist on the story.**

**If you enjoyed the story and want to ask me questions, you can either send me a PM, or contact me via Twitter at Joshua Bevers infernezor or facebook by the name of Jay Xe. I'll respond to any and all questions, concerns, or people just saying hello ^.^**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Yea, things and stuff.**

**I thought it was odd that, although this is Naruto centric, Naruto's perspective wasn't included in that chapter. I'll make up for it in this one. Also, I will be jumping around a bit time wise. The week Naruto is traveling back to Konoha, while important, is a bit trivial at times. So, I'll only be including the super important bits.**

**I also found it amusing that, although this is my least reviewed story, it also received more alerts/favorites than any other I've scribed for the first chapter.**

**Edit: It's been edited, added to, and sworn at. I remain pleased with the outcome.**

**Chapter Two**

**Before the Rain**

"Pass."

"Pass."

"Fifty thousand."

"Fifty thousand... And ten more." Naruto slid the tokens forward.

The older man, his hair salt and pepper and face slightly wrinkled, puffed on his pipe calmly.

"Fifty... and another fifty."

Naruto raised an eyebrow.

The pool was already rather high. With what was on the table it would amount to two hundred thousand, easily, and this was far form his first game.

"I see the intent... But I don't see the cash, Mr. Yutin."

"Tough words for a youngster who barely has more than what he put on the table."

"But I do have it." The blond shinobi riposted calmly. "And more, if I need it. While you don't seem to."

"Cocky brat, aren't you?" The older man said with, cocking his eyebrow.

"You two gentlemen going to play... or talk?" The only woman at the table asked, taking a drag of her long, thin pipe.

"Ah, Telana... As to the point as always." The man laughed. "Anyway, since our young friend seems to have... doubts." Yutin calmly wrote something on a scrap of paper.

Naruto picked it up, cocking an eyebrow.

"Sure of yourself, aren't you?" He said finally. "This is not money, Mr. Yutin. And I lack time."

"My little business not to your liking, my boy?" Yutin asked with amusement.

"Lack of time, as I said. I need to be somewhere by the end of a week. I've dallied through the countryside long enough. My escort grows impatient."

"Ah." The older man nodded. "Though... I'm sure we can work something out."

Naruto rubbed his chin thoughtfully. While he would have liked the cold, hard cash more, there was something to be said about the more... regular profit for the upcoming months. You never knew just when you could use some extra money. Or a safe heaven – a change of scenery was always an… Option. Should things go south in Konoha he could always use a safe haven until things blew over. He just had to hope that it never came down to that.

"Tell you what... change it into a five percent profit for the next three months and several meals and board kind of deals, redeemable anytime I want, and you have a deal."

"Deal, boy." Yutin laughed. "You have guts. Very well! If you win I-"

"I already did." Naruto smiled. "Royal flush."

Telana chuckled.

"Seems like you will be feeding somebody for free. In every sense of the word, Yutin!"

The older man sighed, showing his full house.

"Alas, it appears so." He said with good humor.

As much as he liked gambling, he was a businessman. He never bet more than he could afford to lose, and the game was interesting.

"Then it appears you will be my guest for the period of your stay in our quaint little city, Naruto." He smiled. "Just as well, just as well. I planned a small party, and it seems you, my young gambler, will be my guest of honor tonight. I invite your companions as well, of course."

Which was just as well, really. He had it planned for several of the wealthier of his clients, yet they were lured away by a banquet at some fat nobles' house.

'Feh. As if some stuffy old baboon can throw such fine parties like mine.'

Drinks were already bought, foods and entertainments reserved... It would be a good publicity in a way. The young man cut a swath through the gambling establishments and he would bet there would be people willing to play against him. People with a lot of money to burn. With a bit of luck, Naruto's patronage might allow him not only to redeem his losses but also make a tidy profit on side bets and some added prestige.

'Ah. I love win-win situations.' Yutin smiled cheerfully.

**Line Break**

Naruto was attempting to relax in the room that Yutin had set up for him a day prior. It was a bit too extravagant for him if he was to be completely honest. At least it was only for a couple more hours until he was scheduled to leave.

For the better half of his life, he'd spent his time in circus tents, cheap inns, or if he was feeling especially adventurous, the odd brothel. He was used to shady taverns and questionable company. The plush cushions on the feather couch or the silk and intricately weaved curtains hanging over his stained glass windows seemed overly indulgent to him. They struck him just the same way they had when he was young and still living in the Namikaze estate: Ostentatious.

'_I suppose I'll have to get used to it'_ he thought grimly, drumming his fingers on the recliner's mahogany armrest in agitation. He wanted to move.

He'd made quite the sum of money during his time with Yutin. Sasuke – he'd learned the ANBU's name shortly after leaving the circus – hadn't been pleased with all the delays. But then again, the Anbu would just have to learn how to deal with the unexpected. It'd be good for him. Maybe a little lighthearted fun would loosen the Uchiha up a bit.

Sasuke hadn't told him his last name, but you'd have to be dense not to have noticed his heritage. Black hair with equally black eyes, a personality that more befitted a mossy rock, and an unerring sense of duty to one thing or another, made him rather distinguishable. That and he remembered Sasuke during his own academy years spent back in Konoha. As rookie of the year, Sasuke tended to stand out back then as well.

Naruto yawned lazily. It would be another two hours or so before they were scheduled to leave port and sail for another two days to a small village in the Land of Waves. From there it was a quick carriage ride to Konoha where Konoha would probably put on a small show of his arrival. He'd be properly displayed and then told to manage his estate well for the good of Konoha and all of her interests.

Naruto rose from where he'd been lounging, glancing about the room anxiously. Three days he'd spent in this place gambling and being entertained, and it was already suffocating him. He shuddered to think what being made to be respectable in Konoha was going to do to him.

Naruto strode to the door, flinging it open. Sasuke stood in the doorway, eyebrow raised and hand up as if to knock. The Uchiha had changed out of his 'peasant's disguise' and was dressed in his ANBU gear, black tank top with a white overlaying vest, baggy black pants which no doubt concealed a kunai or two strapped to the inside of his calf. He'd forgone the characteristic mask that most ANBU wore, he hadn't explained to Naruto as to why. The Namikaze hadn't bothered to ask.

"I'm going for a drink." Naruto announced stiffly. It seemed appropriate to him that he should while away the last two hours in pleasant debauchery. After all, he was going to be spending the rest of his life modeling himself after the rest of the nobility.

The Uchiha seemed to have very fixed views on how Nobility were _supposed_ to act. Doubtless it had been pounded into him since the moment of his birth by his parents, like it had been into Naruto himself by his father. The difference between them was that Naruto had managed to escape all that – doing his best to forget about it in a few drinks.

"One of the serving women told me about a gentleman's club not to far from here. We can go there." Sasuke informed him. He had heard about it from one of the serving men and he wasn't about to let the Namikaze out of his sight, not now that they were so close to being back and his mission almost complete.

"Nope. I'm looking for a building that looks like it's about to fall down- one that has moss covering the sign and vomit in the alleyway." Naruto said, pushing past the Uchiha and stepping into the hallway, doing his best to ignore the silk draperies hanging from the ceiling.

Sasuke frowned as they went down the stairs. "Why?"

"Because I want to get drunk, maybe fight, get thrown out, and possibly robbed, before I'm thrown into the comfortable jail in Konoha."  
"We should get Jango before we leave, then." Sasuke said, stepping through the door and into the midafternoon sun, blinking against its bright rays.

"He'll already be at the boat." Naruto said distractedly, casting about for the most disreputable street he could find. "Jango's always had a fondness for boats, you see. It was one of the reasons he left the monastery the way he did."

"He wasn't sent on a pilgrimage?" Sasuke asked. It was very usual for monks to leave their homes unless they are seeking wisdom, are sent out by the abbot, or are banished.

"This isn't a talk you should be having with me." Naruto said, picking a direction and heading down it, throwing Sasuke a meaningful look. "That's a discussion you'll have to have with him, if he's willing. It's his story, not mine."

There lapsed a silence between the two as Naruto ducking in and out; down and through alleys until he came across a tavern marked _The Horse and Strumpet_ by a sign that hung lopsided by a single, rusted chain under a rotting awning.

Naruto smiled as Sasuke grimaced. To Sasuke it looked like the building was going to collapse at any second if the moldy wood and entrance columns were anything to go by.

"Perfect." Naruto said satisfactorily, walking up the creaking steps and pushing the door open. The hinges parted with a rusty, cracking noise that made both of the ninja wince.

Stepping into the bar, both Naruto and Sasuke noted that the interior was slightly better than the exterior in that the wood wasn't moldy. it was just poorly varnished, with splashes of different colored staining splotched around indiscriminately.

The bartender, an old, wizened, bespectacled man with white hair slicked back from his temples glanced at the duo briefly before returning to filling up a white haired, elderly ninja's drink. The ninja appeared to be asleep, his head partially buried in one arm as drool leaked from his agape mouth. The headband the man wore bore an insignia that neither Sasuke nor Naruto could readily identify from the angle they had positioned themselves at the bar at.

"Six pints of whatever you have on tap." Naruto ordered, smiling at the bartender in a friendly, if slightly unnerving manner while placing a wade of bills on the counter.

The Quintin, the bartender, was a little worried by the smile one of the young men who'd entered his pub was giving him. People dressed as finely as he was, backed by what was clearly a ninja - did not smile at being in a place like his with as much enthusiasm the blond was directing towards him.

'_Nobility.'_ Quintin deduced as he stared at the youth. He'd dealt with their kind before. In his experience noble sons were one of nature's great destructive forces, like floods and tornados. When you're struck with one of these catastrophes the only thing an average man can do is grit his teeth and try to minimize the damage.

So, it was with quick - if fumbling, fingers that he poured the duo their drinks and made a hasty retreat, but not before collecting the wad of cash from the counter.

Ignorant of the bartender's terror, Naruto gathered his five drinks onto a small, dirty tray and went to sit at the back of the pub at a booth that was ever so slightly cleaner than most, Sasuke following sullenly behind him. The Uchiha wasn't pleased to be here. He would get over it.

A man that was sitting at a booth next to the two, looked a the two men, looked at the five pints, did a swift burst of mental arithmetic, arrived at an answer he liked, a grinned a stupid, hopeful grin at them.

"Get off," Said Naruto, pulling the tray closer to himself. "Their mine." Giving him a look that would have made an Iwa Kage think twice.

"Why are we here again?" Sasuke asked, reaching for one of the drinks only to have his hand swatted away by an indignant Naruto.  
"Because I want to become slightly buzzed for my trip home." Naruto explained, upending one of the drinks down his throat.

As the Kyuubi's Jinchuuriki, becoming intoxicated wasn't easy – the Kyuubi's chakra along with his own would burn out the chemicals before they could take hold of his system. Through much experimentation, Naruto found that if he suppressed his chakra, and drank like fish, he could get a bit of a buzz going.

Slamming the bottle on the table, Naruto let out a satisfied sigh as Sasuke stared at him in disbelief. This pattern continued for another two drinks before a thin, wheezy voice interrupted Naruto's drinking system.

"Ah, looks like we got some fine flesh slumming it with the trash in these parts."

Naruto spared the annoying voice a scathing glance. The lanky, skinny, semi-prematurely bald – he had a mist headband wrapped around his head in an attempt to hide just how bald he was - weasel of a man, dressed in his green, overly tight smoking vest and purple slacks, was interrupting his last chance at peace. He had his two khaki clad goons flanking him, big, useless muscles bulging under their purposelessly small shirts.

Naruto dismissed them as nothing but an annoyance and returned his attention to his drinks. The weasel of a man couldn't be higher than Chunin and the goons weren't even worth mentioning. Should they cause trouble, they wouldn't take but a moment to dispatch.

Naruto began chugging his fourth drink, musing at what Sasuke was probably thinking. Sasuke's line of thought was probably something like, 'How am I supposed to protect the Namikaze and defeat these idiots while not attracting attention that two nobles are in this dump of a place.'

Naruto was quite certain that under normal circumstances the Uchiha wouldn't have batted an eyelash as he stepped over three freshly made corpses on his way to wherever it was Uchiha made their way to. However, the Uchiha didn't know that Naruto already had things well in hand. You didn't survive for long out in the world unless you knew how to either make yourself invisible, or break those who'd seek to take advantage.

"Oi!" The Goon on the left shouted. "Listen to the boss."

'Boss' just nodded, giving Naruto a dark, toothy smile as Naruto downed his fourth drink and started on his fifth and final beverage.

Around the side of his bottle, Naruto watched Sasuke's eyes flick around the bar; no doubt formulating many a complex and jutsu intensive plan.

"Listen to me you blond prick!" The boss snapped, slamming his hand onto the table, sending the drinks clattering to the floor.

Sasuke stiffened in preparation to move. But before the he could move, Naruto spoke.

"Settle down, Sasuke." Naruto said, smiling gently at the Uchiha.

Sasuke glared at Naruto.

"This idiot wants to rob us, Naruto, and we can't draw attention to ourselves." Sasuke growled out, finally using Naruto's first name. The Uchiha must really be angry with him.

"I know." Naruto replied simply, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. This trip had been a good idea after all. "But you need to ask yourself this. I ordered six drinks. I've already drunk everything I brought to the table. Where did the sixth drink go?"

There was a brief pause before Sasuke suddenly relaxed – as much as a ninja awaiting a combative show could relax - an interested glint entering his eyes.

Naruto's open-ended question was answered, as another Naruto appeared behind the trio, grabbing the two thugs heads and in one deft motion slammed them together, knocking them unconscious. Before the two idiots could hit the ground, the clone delivered a low kick to the back of the boss's leg knocking him forward and to his knees. The real Naruto slid out of his seat in a quick, easy motion, grabbing the thug's boss by his throat in a vice-like grip with his left hand and delivered a devastating punch into his stupidified face. The whole scene took less than a second to unfold.

There was a sickly crunch and Naruto felt the would-be robber's nose break under his fist. Another blow to the forehead rendered the boss unconscious.

"Pansy." Naruto muttered, dropping the bleeding man in a heap to the ground.

Naruto withdrew another small wad of cash from his pocket and dropped it onto the table Sasuke was still seated at.

"Sorry for the mess." Naruto said flatly to the bartender who'd slunk back into his post a few minutes prior.

"Come on, Mr. ANBU. We'll be late for our trip." Naruto said half heartedly as he made for the bar's exit. "We wouldn't want to be late for our party, would we?"

Naruto opened the door and left, Sasuke trailing behind.

'_I think I've seen a little of the smirk Jango was talking about.'_ Sasuke thought as he went through the portal and into the light of day.

**Line Break**

Sasuke knelt behind a few barrels that were kept in the aft of the ship, sweat dripping his forehead and down his nose as he scanned the next room, taking in each item and rejecting it as a fake. Normally, reality was easy to check with his special eyes, however, he'd quickly learned that his Sharingan was useless against this particular opponent, especially since neither of them were allowed to use elemental Ninjutsu for fear of sinking the ship.

There was a small popping noise from behind, just barely loud enough for him to hear, quickly followed by a quick whiff of the acrid scent of smoke. Sasuke dropped lower to the ground, pressing against the floor with his hands while kicking out with his feet behind him in a scissor like motion aimed at the blond's knees in an effort to break them.

The blond dodged, casually leaping over the attack with an indifferent grace.

Sasuke removed his hands from the ground, tucking his head in a tight forward roll to avoid the drop kick from Naruto. He felt wind from the kick pass by his face as he rose and heard the crack of wood as his opponent's foot impacted with the wooden floor.

Striking out with a strong, chakra enhanced, palm, Sasuke drove his counter into the blond's ribs, dispelling the clone in a puff of smoke. The Uchiha leapt, twisting in the air and attaching himself to the ceiling while simultaneously dodging a sweeping roundhouse kick from a Naruto who'd come in through the door behind him, attracted by the sounds of the brief scuffle.

Sasuke doubted that this was the real Namikaze. With over three hours of brawling, he had yet to encounter the originator of all these damn clones. But these three hours had taught him three very valuable things about Naruto.

One: There was never just one Naruto. Never.

Two: Naruto was most certainly not a Genin. Reports be damned.

Three: Small quarters fighting with an opponent who could create a seemingly limitless amount of clones was a very bad idea indeed.

Sasuke pushed off from the ceiling, careening himself at the Namikaze with a full body tackle.

_Poof, _Naruto disappeared, leaving Sasuke alone in the room once more.

Quickly recovering his feet, Sasuke stood and glanced about with both his eyes and his senses. Nothing. That was good, he might get a slight break if he kept quiet this time and didn't underestimate the Namikaze's sense of hearing again.

'_You were the one who asked him for a challenge.'_ Sasuke reminded himself glibly, rubbing his aching left arm.

It was true. Ever since he'd seen the Namikaze heir defeat those three goons at the bar he'd sparred with Naruto and Jango no less than eight times in two days. Jango, he'd defeated two out of their five matches. He had yet to score a victory against the Namikaze scion. Not only was the blond's fighting style and tactics unorthodox, but he never seemed to tire.

'_And you have yet to see him cut loose with Ninjutsu as well.' _Sasuke reminded himself as he stood and shoved a small chakra-restoring pill into his mouth, swallowing it down dry.

Naruto had displayed an impressive array of Ninjutsu, including his father's Rasengan. Sasuke, however, suspected that the both of them were holding back. Whether it was because these techniques weren't complete, or –like some of the techniques he knew – weren't meant for sparring, but for ending lives.

There came a small pulse of chakra to Sasuke's left and on the backside of the door. Sasuke reacted instantly, spinning around and slamming the door shut as quickly as he could, clapping his hand over the seal while channeling chakra to deactivate the slightly glowing glyph of the door before it could fully activate.

He'd learned from spar two with Naruto that the blond was fairly skilled in Fuuinjutsu, but Naruto claimed that he wasn't, saying 'My father, mother, and by now probably my sister are far more accomplished in the traditional ideal of sealing.'

Sasuke had pressed him for more information on what he meant by 'traditional' but the blond had refused to answer, either changing the subject or flat out ignoring the question. Sasuke couldn't help but to notice tight lines appear at the corner of the otherwise unwrinkled and youthful face Naruto possessed, which indicated that he either was lying or wasn't proud of what he'd done. Sasuke hadn't seen the Namikaze speak a dishonest word to anyone yet. It had earned him so small extra measure of respect from the Uchiha.

The seal deactivated, Sasuke spun around once more while deftly drawing a kunai from a pouch at his side to block the strike he knew would be coming. The chakra tag, while still a valid threat, was only meant as a distraction.

Metal met metal in a sharp hiss and a spray of yellow, angry sparks. Neither combatant blinked as the small, hot, piece of stray metal flew near their eyes before burning up.

Naruto's face split into a wide smile, excitement for the contest flickering like a small fire behind his bright blue eyes. Sasuke couldn't keep the small grin of his own off his face as he pressed his small weapon against Naruto's slightly longer one – as the blond favored his own specialized blend of kunai, a cross between his father's three pronged kunai and Suna's longer, single bladed kunai with a small circular hilt.

"Land ho!" a small voice called from the top deck, slowly gaining power as the message was repeated down to the hands below deck.

Sasuke buried his annoyance at the interruption behind an impassive mask.

"Guess that's the end." Naruto said, a tint of disappointment in his voice as he disengaged the blades.

With a quick twirl, the blond dropped the blade. But before it could hit the ground and damage the wood, he lifted his leg so that the weapon seemed to melt into the fabric just above the hemline of his orange cargo pants.

'_One of his special seals, _Sasuke noted, '_it doesn't produce smoke or make a noise when being stowed.'_

"Hnn." Sasuke grunted in agreement, stuffing his own kunai back into his pouch with a practiced yet sullen motion.

"Time to head into the world of nobility, where we'll die a slow, painful death of respect and respectability." Naruto sighed as he turned and ascended one of the many stairs that dotted the ship to a higher decking.

"Hmm." Sasuke hummed. He was an Uchiha, damn it, not a conversationalist.

"Ever with the pithy turns of phrases, my friend. Seriously, you need to cut that out. Someone might get the wrong impression that you actually _enjoy_ conversation." Naruto said dryly, turning to give him a deadpan glance.

Sasuke just shrugged, not bothering to deny the statement.

**Line Break**

The horse drawn carriage trundled over Konoha's dirt roads, plodding its way to the Hokage Tower where Naruto was expected to present himself to the Hokage and the rest of the Clan heads who would be standing in wait for him. A small, reedy man wielding a pen and clipboard briefed him on the proper procedures when he'd gotten off the boat earlier that day. It was more annoying than informative, as Naruto either already knew, or could guess at everything the nervous man told him.

His agitation at the assistant was probably misplaced, Naruto reflected. It was his job to make sure Naruto knew just what to do so that he could seem as impressive as possible to Konoha's populace. What annoyed Naruto most about the man was that he kept saying things like, 'because you're a Namikaze you need to- ', or 'the previous Namikaze was well known for –', or worst of all, 'the people expect great things from you, what with you taking over from his lordship Namikaze.'

'_What the hell is being a Namikaze supposed to mean?'_ Naruto wondered, letting a bit of his agitation come to the forefront.

The bureaucrat had made it quite clear that something was expected of Naruto. Neither of them was quite sure what that was, but something was most diffidently expected of the new Namikaze heir. It was only natural that the son should be as great as the father.

It wasn't quite fair, Naruto had decided, that since Minato Namikaze had been Hokage and only clan member, nothing was expected of him other than to be a wonderful Hokage. He didn't have any clan responsibilities. Naruto couldn't get away with that. He would have to find something that his clan would specialize in.

Every clan had their duties they preformed for their society. The Inuzuka were Konoha's veterinarians as well as fearsome warriors. The Nara watched over Konoha's forests and wildlife, as well as supplied herbs for the medics. They were also brilliant tacticians of unparalleled skill when called upon. His sister's clan, the Uzumaki, were experts in Fuinjutsu, a complex and not to mention lucrative business. It also happened to be terribly useful for ninjas as well. She was responsible for Konoha's defensive seal network.

Given every other clan's excellence, what were the Namikaze good for?

Naruto busied himself by smoothing the hem of his black yukata in an attempt to distract himself from his thoughts. Somehow, the black, silk yukata felt wrong without the familiar Uzumaki Clan symbol woven on the back. Instead he had the Namikaze symbol emblazed where the Uzumaki symbol had traditionally been.

It wasn't that he was attached to his mother more than his father. It was just that he disliked his father more. The Hokage had been stubborn and, in Naruto's opinion, rather short sighted on many matters, the Uchiha massacre for one. It could have been prevented, or at least lessened, if only his father had-

Naruto stopped his ministrations abruptly. He didn't like dwelling on his family very much, too many painful and pointless memories. Still, a memory of his parents, huddled together on the couch while thinking their children were safe in bed, whispering sweet nothings in each others ears as the night passed, came unbidden to his mind, sticking there like cold plaster. It was how he would prefer to remember them, together and happy, if he wanted to remember them at all.

Naruto glanced at the other side of the carriage where Jango and Sasuke had been before they'd entered Konoha. The Uchiha had to arrive at the Tower before him, to report his mission complete and get changed for the entrance ceremony. Jango had left as well, leaving Naruto to ride alone. It wouldn't due for him to be seen interacting with the riff-raff as the pencil pusher had noted.

Naruto nearly killed the idiot. Luckily for the sniveling man, Jango was far more forgiving than himself.

Naruto closed his eyes as the whispers from the people standing outside, gathering to see the spectacle, drifted through the carriages walls and made their homes in his ears.

"_The demon Namikaze has returned."_

"_Why did they bring him back?"_

"_Couldn't the Uzumaki heir take the seat instead of the demon?"_

It was funny how they were voicing the same questions he'd been asking himself ever since he' spotted the ANBU Uchiha in the audience. He wondered what the whisperers would think if they knew he could hear them.

Ninjas had very acute ears, Naruto even more so. His maturing with the Kyuubi sealed within him had given him a few useful traits, as well as a few not so useful ones. Fifteen through eighteen had been especially hard on him for obvious reasons. The Demon spent most of its time sleeping these past few years, anyway. Naruto was grateful. The creature could bitch about almost anything.

The carriage proceeded for another five minutes before over a dozen powerful chakra signatures smashed into upon his senses. He was not a sensor. Jango enjoyed reminding him of that fact on a frequent basis, but he was still better than the average Joe in his awareness of other's presence.

One of the two strongest signatures he detected was no doubt the Hokage. The fact that it stood at the head of the procession reinforced Naruto's opinion. The second was undoubtedly his sister. High chakra capacities ran in the family it would seem. Naruto could almost sense her seething anger from where he sat.

Naruto sighed, opening his eyes wearily. Everyone had gathered to see the new Namikaze head. To see his grandeur, his refined comportment, his wonderful aura of command, to see the shade of the Hokage they had lost.

Naruto, for his part, was rather curious to see the man himself. He hoped he'd be impressive.

**End of Chapter Two**

**A/N: I was actually rather pleased with this chapter, even if it was mostly traveling.**

**Edit: It's no longer just traveling.**

**If you enjoyed the story and want to ask me questions, you can either send me a PM, or contact me via Twitter at Joshua Bevers infernezor or facebook by the name of Jay Xe. I'll respond to any and all questions, concerns, or people just saying hello ^.^**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Yea, things and stuff.**

**Thank you all for your thoughtful reviews. It inspires me to continue the story more than you could imagine.**

**In response to a reader's question: Yes, Naruto is quite powerful. How powerful? **

**Edit: Looking back, I can't say I overly enjoyed this chapter, but it was necessary. I needed the small tells that would be revealed in later chapters. I needed the introductions and to introduce Naruto's insecurities when dealing with others. Despite the poor writing that goes on in this chapter, I found little I would change.**

**Chapter Three**

**Home is Where You Bury the Bloody Hatchet**

The carriage trundled to a stop just in front of The Hokage Tower. Naruto could hear the horse let out a nervous snort as it pawed at the ground anxiously. It was a well-known fact that animals had an instinct for detecting trouble, and this one had no doubt connected the dots between its passenger and the array of unquestionably powerful humans arrayed before it and had not liked the conclusion it had arrived at.

'_At least the clever creature will be able to get away.'_ Naruto thought forlornly, opening the door and stepping from the carriage.

He could feel twelve pairs of judgmental eyes following his every movement, along with countless others in the crowd behind him.

"Brother," A female figure said in a light, yet rich, voice, detaching herself from the Hokage's side and approaching him. Heruko had most certainly grown during his absence from his home. Before, she had been a small scraggly thing with snarls in her hair from playing outside so much, running around and parroting anything her parents said with child-like innocence. Now, Heruko was the same height as himself, standing proud at five-eleven. Her blonde hair with impossible, natural red highlights had a lustrous shine compared to the rather lackluster, mess Naruto remembered.

Heruko embraced him, her vibrant, white Yukata rustling against his black one. Her embrace was a lot more aggressive than it needed to have been. He felt one of his ribs groan and then crack under the strain.

'_Already trying to get me to understand what my place is, sister?'_

Naruto returned the embrace with a gentle one of his own. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't bring himself to hate her, never mind hurt her.

'_She doesn't know any better.'_ Naruto told himself as her grip tightened even more. '_She grew up playing their twisted game. In a way, I was lucky I was forced to bear the Kyuubi. At least then people made their feelings towards me clear. She has grown up being fed their lies with a silver spoon.'_

Heruko released him, allowing him to breathe once more. She eyed him with a buyer's eye, clearly evaluating what he was worth and if the effort was worth the price.

"Brother, I'm so glad your home." She said sweetly, blinking demurely at him.

"I'm glad to be home." Naruto said, nodding respectfully to her, his blonde hair obscuring his vision of her for a moment. It was part of the script for the show he was to put on for the gawkers behind him. "The years I've spent abroad studying have made me quite homesick. While it is sad that father has passed, I am relieved to return."

Heruko put on a falsely sympathetic expression, nodding sadly.

"I'm sorry you missed father's burial, but we had trouble finding you."

Naruto couldn't quite tell if the tear that fell down her right cheek was faked or not. If it wasn't real then she had gotten better at her acting.  
"I'm sorry as well. I should have liked to have said my farewells to both father and mother."

Heruko nodded, returning to her position beside the Hokage, satisfied with how Naruto had been behaving so far, pleased with his performance. Of course his performance was good. He'd spent the fours years with various traveling circuses, learning their craft, playing their songs, and acting in their plays.

The new Hokage stepped forward. She appeared young, maybe late twenties, with long blonde hair that hung down in a full ponytail. However, Naruto knew that she was one of the Sannin, Tsunade Senju, head of the Senju clan, and was actually somewhere in her late fifties. She was dressed in her full Hokage apparel for the occasion. White, resplendent robes billowed around her as she stepped towards him, the traditional, triangular, red-white hat with the symbol for 'Konoha' woven onto the front resting upon her head.

"Welcome back, Namikaze." She greeted him, not unkindly. The smile she gave him actually reached her eyes.

'_Her greeting isn't a front.'_ Naruto realized with some surprise as he bowed deeply before his lord. _"She actually holds no negative feelings towards me. Maybe it's because she made a similar decision to what I did and ran from her problems. We have that much in common at least. We're both cowards who ran from our problems.'_

"Thank you, it's good to be back." Naruto returned, being sure to project his voice so the audience could hear.

The Hokage nodded to him curtly and then returned to where she had been standing, her brief part in the dance complete.

After the Hokage's withdraw, Naruto was then greeted by the rest of Konoha's clans. He shook hands with Shikaku, of the Naras; Choza, of the Akimichi; Shibi, of the Aburame; Kiba, of the Inuzukas; Asuma, of the Sarutobi; Inoichi, of the Yamanaka clan. He bowed to Sasuke, of the Uchiha and Hiashi, of the Hyuuga

It was an annoying formal affair in Naruto's opinion. Full of all the pomp and grandeur it was so due. Once all of the kowtowing was out of the way, the Hokage asked, "Shall we adjourn to my study? We can conduct our business there."

Everyone agreed and made their way towards the door, Naruto somehow ending up at the back of the line. Once inside, the Hokage turned to face him.

"I'm sorry, Namikaze, but your presence won't be required for this meeting. I'm sure you are quite tired and your sister has taken the liberty of summoning your butler for you. He's just through the door, there." The Hokage pointed to a door just in front of the group. "He will escort you to your estate where you can find the peace and rest you no doubt require."

Naruto translated this as 'You aren't wanted here. It's better if you move along.'

'_So they would make me into a figurehead? Control me as they would a puppet, with me as the pleasant face of their dead lord?'_

Naruto could claim that he wasn't tired and try to talk his way into their discussions of him, but that would force him to play his hand to soon. With the exception of the Uchiha - of whom he'd thoroughly managed to corrupt after their little bonding bar fight - they thought him a weak, manipulatable Genin, and so, they would underestimate him. Acting out now would only change their opinions from thinking that he was inept to thinking he was a petulant child.

'_So much for the impressive act.' _

Naruto bowed quietly and took his leave through the door they indicated, where there was a tall, elderly man in a tailored suite, cut in the western style, wearing white gloves sitting in a deep-back armchair. His white hair was cut short so that only a few distinguished strips stuck out in small spikes from under his black, bowler hat. He didn't jump at the sound of the door, nor Naruto's sudden appearance. He merely stood with a dignified grace and bowed low.

"Good evening, sir. My name is Hoid and it will be a pleasure to serve you, I'm sure." He said in a soft, yet strangely firm voice.

Naruto eyed the butler as the servant smiled at him as he straightened himself from the bow, the motion crinkling the skin around his kindly, brown eyes.

"How long have you been serving my family?" Naruto asked. The question was a bit abrupt and more than a little rude, but he needed to find out if his sister planted this man. Over the years of dealing with the inept, the cheap, the cheats, and generally dishonest people, he'd developed a rather keen ability to discern spoken truth from lies.

'_The paranoia this place inspires is already getting to me.'_ Naruto thought mournfully as he watched his 'butler' for signs of deceit.

"I have been serving the Namikaze Estate ever since your father founded it six years ago." The butler replied, his smile growing even larger.

'_No flutter of the eyelash, trip of the speech, or increase in pulse.' _Naruto noted. _'He's telling the truth, or at least, what he believes is the truth.'_

Naruto didn't know if he could trust that strange twinkling in his butler's eye, it unnerved him and reminded him of his father would smile at him after he'd managed to do something particularly clever.

Naruto nodded curtly. "I am tired, Hoid. My journey was long and I wish to rest."

"Of course, sir." Hoid replied, walking to a door at the other end of the room and opening it. "I have prepared a carriage out back that will take us to our destination. Your sister made it quite clear that you are not to be seen leaving the premises by anyone."

"I'm sure she did." Naruto grumbled exiting through the proffered door.

"Indeed, sir. She even went so far as to say that she wouldn't be disappointed if you were to remain there for the rest of the week or until she has had a chance to talk to you."

Naruto glanced suspiciously at the butler following behind him. If this butler was working for his sister then he wasn't very good at keeping her secrets.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because, sir, she is no longer under my care. I am the Namikaze butler, not the Uzumaki butler. My cousin, Ventus, cares for her.

"How very… discerning of you." Naruto said slowly, making sure to keep track of the elderly man behind him, following at a respectful distance.

"Indeed." The man agreed. "I believe that was what your father said of me as well. You two look so much alike."

The butler stepped quickly, but respectfully, in front of Naruto and opened another door that lead out the back of the Hokage's tower where there was a stately, white carriage parked a few feet from the door.

The butler allowed Naruto to walk through first but quickly passed him and opened the carriage's door and bowed to him. Naruto repressed a sigh and entered his transport, positioning himself upon the spotless cushions.

The carriage shook slightly from side to side as Hoid climbed up onto the driver's seat. A moment later there was a snap of the whip and the wagon lurched into motion.

The two made their way to the Namikaze estate in silence. Naruto spent the entire trip wondering what kind of damage control he'd have to run for Jango, and what fun the monk was almost doubtlessly getting himself into.

'_Lucky bastard._' Naruto thought as the carriage came to a stop. A moment later the door opened and the crinkled visage of Hoid retreated to the side to allow Naruto to descend.

Naruto's sandaled feet hit the ground, kicking up a little bit of red dust from his impact. The blonde raised an eyebrow as he took in the Namikaze Estate. It wasn't as large as he remembered it being. Maybe that was because he'd gained two feet of height since he had last wandered these grounds.

Oak and Konoha Reds where spread sporadically throughout the front lawn in no apparent pattern. The white building was two stories tall with green ivy crawling up the left face. If he remembered correctly, there would be a shed in the back where his father would work on his seals in private.

'_He was always busy with one thing or another.'_ Naruto mused as he made his way up the cobblestone path towards the door, memories dancing in his mind of his father hunched over his table, working on yet another of his magical seals.

"Are you intending to rest, sir?" Hoid asked from where he was following behind him at a respectable distance.

"Possibly." Naruto replied, evading the question without lying.

"Well, if I might be so bold." The butler started. "If you are feeling adventurous later this evening, your father quite enjoyed his time in the shed. He's made some interesting modifications to the seal array on the floor since you've been gone."

Naruto frowned, saying as he turned to face the servant, "But there never was-" He was cut off by the slightly panicked look Hoid was giving him.

"Ah," Naruto said, changing tact, "I remember now. Foolish of me to have forgotten, forgive me, it's been a long time."

"Not at all, sir. It is I who should have explained better." Hoid said, regaining his composure and smiling slightly. "That was another thing your father used to enjoy telling me. I never could explain myself properly."

"Nonsense, you did just fine." Naruto reassured him. "You know, I might just check it out. You are dismissed."

"As you wish, sir. I'll be seeing to the house staff if you need me. Is there anything in particular I should have to cooking staff prepare for you this evening?"

"No, thank you for the offer though." Naruto said.

"You do not need to thank me, sir. It is my duty."

"Regardless. I thank you." Naruto said, meeting Hoid's gray eyes.

The butler hesitated, not breaking eye contact, before saying, "You're welcome, sir."

There was something that passed between the two, a sort of vague understanding that Naruto couldn't quite place.

Hoid nodded and then walked past Naruto into the house, leaving Naruto alone.

"Man," Jango said dropping from one of the many trees that littered the estate, "I thought the old codger was never going to leave."

"Wasing the way of the thing. (It's his way.)" Naruto said, switching to an Eastern street slang, imitating the accent perfectly, as he made his way to the house. He chose this accent particularly for it's hard to follow patterns and seemingly nonsensical verbiage. Anyone attempting to eavesdrop would be completely lost in either the accent or the words.

"Doing the word of the mouth? (You're going to follow what he said?" Jango asked, joining Naruto in the dialect. Contrary to what many believed, Naruto had never met a person with more mastery over languages and speech patterns than Jango. He switched and danced between accents and countries with more regularity than nobles showered.

"Wasing the careful acting of the ways. (I'll need to be careful, but yes)." Naruto answered.

"Can't be the truth if you was seeing it. (I'll run distraction for those who might be watching." Jango replied, grinning in anticipation.

"Being grateful of the creation. (Thanks.)" Naruto said, nodding to his friend.

Jango flashed him a smile before disappearing in a small flash of purple, his monk version of a Shunshin.

Naruto smiled faintly as he turned and walked to his door. It was nice to have friends at times.

'_I'll just relax in my room until he sets off the distraction.' _Naruto resolved, opening the door and walking through. A quick ascent up a flight of stairs and he was approaching what he remembered to be the master bedroom.

He opened the door and glanced around, taking in what was once his father's room.

His father had made changes since he'd been gone. The wall was still a light shade of blue. The small writing desk pressed into the left corner of the room still had notes his father had been making on whatever project happened to flit through his head at odd hours of the evening. The oak dresser with funny engravings running along it's frame still stood against the right wall, as immaculate as ever. However, the four-poster bed was gone. In it's place was a neatly laid small rolled up pile of sheets, untouched since his father's death.

Naruto turned and closed to the door. As the door clicked into place Naruto felt a gust of wind blow across the back of his neck.

'_Damn it.'_

Naruto pulsed his chakra twice in quick succession, waited a moment, and received a pulse of spiritual energy from Jango in response.

'_Good. Jango got the message.'_

It was crude, but Jango had been called off for the moment. His current visitor had efficiently ruined his plan to find out what Hoid had been talking about.

"I thought that it would have taken longer for you to have discussed my fate." Naruto said, turning around.

His sister was sitting at the foot of his bed, legs crossed and openly glaring at him now that she was no longer restrained by propriety.

"Silly older brother." She said, smiling at him. It pained him slightly that Heruko had inherited his mother's emerald green eyes while he had inherited his fathers crystalline, cobalt ones. It was a sick parody that such hate smoldered in her eyes as she glared at him.

"The world doesn't revolve around you. We were discussing who to send on a recon mission. There is a company in the west that has been preforming questionable activities lately."

"Mhmm, Gato corp." Naruto said idly, nodding his head while crossing the room and closing the window Heruko had come in through.

Heruko's expression darkened further, a feat Naruto had previously thought impossible. "How do you know that?"

"The world, as you so delicately put, doesn't revolve around me, sister. I've been out in the world, not reading reports while sitting at a desk for the past six years. Gato's influence has strangled wave, and has been spreading outwards for the past two years."

Heruko snorted, and changed the subject abruptly, not that Naruto minded.

"Father should have never let you leave. You're lucky no one has ever found you. As a Genin you wouldn't have been able to defend yourself."

'_So that's where this is going.'_ Naruto thought sadly.

"Father let me leave for a reason."

Heruko snorted disdainfully.

"I've spent the time you were out gallivanting around the world growing stronger than you could ever be, nine-tails or not." She spat, seemingly not to have heard him.

"I'm proud of you." Naruto said softly so that she couldn't hear him, walking over to his father's table and surveying the notes still resting atop. Raising his voice he said, "I've heard that you mastered father's Hiraishin before his death."

He hadn't, but it wasn't that much of a stretch to assume that she had. She probably hadn't mastered level two yet, but it was still within the realm of possibility.  
"I have." She declared proudly, eyes gleaming with triumph.

"I won't fight you." Naruto said, turning to face her. He knew exactly what this visit was about.

"You will, unless you want me to resist everything you do until you do agree to fight me." She said. "The Uzumaki house is currently far more powerful than the Namikaze, thanks to your absence. I have more than enough money and pull with the council to ensure that you'll never get off the ground."

Naruto turned to face the wall, closing his eyes wearily.

'_Why does she hate me this much? Father and mother's anger I can understand. But I did my best to distance myself from her before I left. She shouldn't hate me as much as she apparently does.'_

"It's not a very even fight. I'm a genin after all." Naruto said, trying to appeal to any sense of fairness in her.

"I don't care. I made it clear to you in the square how this relationship is going to work. I may not be the head of the Namikaze, but I can control you. This little spar is just to make sure you don't get any ideas."

'_So she wants to run the Namikaze clan as well. Why shouldn't I let her? It would be simple. I wouldn't have to do anything. I wouldn't have to scheme, connive and cut my way through their politicking.'_

Naruto could almost see Jango's disappointed face, hear his voice saying, _"What was the point in all of those years of travel then? Weren't you going to change the world one day? Wasn't the boy I met that day going to make the world better?"_

"When and where?" He asked resignedly.

"Tomorrow, training ground seven, six o'clock. That should be plenty far enough removed from the rest of Konoha that our little spar should remain private." Heruko replied.

Naruto nodded.

"I'll be there."

"You better."

Heruko was gone, with only a brief flash of yellow to indicate her passing.

Naruto sighed, walking over and collapsing on the bed, the springs groaning under his weight. He no longer felt like investigating the shed. He was far to emotionally wrung out to bother with it. The day was already an emotional rollercoaster.

There was a brief knock on his door.

"Come in." Naruto sighed, not bothering to look away from where he was staring at the blue ceiling.

The door opened softly, and Naruto heard the soft clatter of plates as Hoid entered the room.

"Your soup, sir." The butler said.

"Put it on the desk." Naruto replied, gesturing vaguely towards his father's note table.

"But the seals-" Hoid began to object.

"I don't care about them." Naruto said, a bit more forcibly than he should have.

There was a pause, then the sound of a tray making contact with wood.

"Of course, sir, sorry to have disturbed."

Hoid walked over to the door and then paused half of the way out.

"Is there anything else?" Naruto asked impatiently, wanting the butler to just leave him alone.

"Sir, things aren't as desperate as you seem to believe." Hoid said.

Naruto raised a brow, still staring at the blue ceiling as if it held all of the answers, not the wizened man at the door.

Undeterred by his master's silence, Hoid continued. "I am a Namikaze butler and this is my home. Nothing that goes on inside this house escapes my attention. Your sister is indeed powerful. The Fifth Hokage has been grooming her to take over for her for the past two years, but doesn't mean that you have to fight her. There are other avenues that can be explored. You are a Namikaze, whether you want to be or not. These people in this house depend on you. Konoha depends on you to remain strong."

Hoid exited the room, but before he closed the door, he said, "And I have faith that your father made the correct decision in keeping you the Namikaze head."

Naruto almost lurched out of his bed to go after Hoid.

'_Father purposely kept me as the head?'_ Naruto thought bewilderedly. '_Why? He knows I won't run it the way he did… run it. Isn't that what my sister intends to take away from me?'_

Naruto closed his eyes.

'_I can't hurt my sister. I've looked after her for so long… to hit her would be going against everything I've worked for the past four years.'_

Naruto fell asleep, his mind racing through all the possible scenarios.

Oddly enough, before he fell asleep, he heard his father's voice and the last thing his father had said to him.

"_Will you defeat them, your demons, and all the non-believers, the plans that they have made? Because one day, my son, I won't be there to save you from all of your misery and hate."_

**Line Break**

Naruto stood, ankle deep in water, in a place he hadn't set foot on in years, glaring at a beast he hadn't set eyes on for exactly the same amount of time it had been since he had stood there. Although, the idea of standing was purely metaphorical while in he was in his own mindscape, the rules of physics were what he made of them. The sewer they were in was a mental construction based on his mindset. Currently, he was depressed and felt backed into a corner. His mind made those feeling manifest in the form of a flooding sewer.

Naruto continued to glare at the mass of chakra as it stared impassively back.

"**You're still weak."** The demon said, his unnaturally white teeth glinting in the dim light of the cavern.

"I-" Naruto started.

"**You're weak."** The demon repeated, cutting him off. **"You had resolved yourself years ago to the possibility of this day. But put under a little bit of pressure, you crack and reawaken me. What were your last words to me, human? 'I'm not afraid to keep on living. I'm not afraid to walk this world alone.' I believe those were your words. Funny how you humans indulge so often in bravado, but rarely back your words up."**

Naruto grit his teeth, anger bubbling up inside of him. They were his words, his words exactly.

'_Damn all demon's and their memories.'_ Naruto cursed.

The Kyuubi chuckled. It's deep baritone voice reverberating around the cavern.

"**So weak…"**

"What would you know of it?" Naruto asked, stepping up to the bars of the cage.

He was greeted by the obligatory claw the fox thrust at him through the bars, attempting to gut him. Naruto caught the beast's claw in a careless open palm, and with a deft flick of the wrist shattered the keratin appendage, the pieces fading into none existence before they hit the ground.

The fox growled, more out of agitation than malice, and leaned forward, the demon's eye was twice as tall as Naruto was. They both knew the routine. The Kyuubi couldn't hurt Naruto and Naruto dared not go after the Kyuubi in full.

"**I know everything. I flow through you constantly, just as you do me. We sustain each other. Although I may not bother being awake most of the time, I still know everything you do. You are weak."**

"What would you have done?" Naruto asked, his eyes boring into the Kyuubi's own.

"**Fight."** The Kyuubi replied evenly.

Naruto snorted, turning his back to the demon and beginning to walk towards the tunnel's exit.

"Typical. Slaughter and ruin is all that's ever on your mind, creature."

"**I will not deny what I am, human." **The Kyuubi growled, goading Naruto into ceasing his retreat.** "Unlike you, I'm far more honest with my intentions. You may not have the same instincts for death that I do, but you should still find your cowering shameful. You would let that sibling of yours walk all over your tail without even so much as growling, despite knowing what you do and with what you're capable of, if only you tried."**

Naruto remained silent, listening to the deep breathing of the living chakra mass behind him.

"I'll consider your words." Naruto said at last, beginning to fade like the claw did previously.

"**No you won't. You'll let them be beaten into you, like you always have."** The demon said as Naruto's head disappeared.

Once the blonde had fully disappeared, the demon shifted slightly and cracked its neck, chains that bound it to the ground rustling with the movement.

"**Like you always will." **It growled before falling asleep once more, ignoring the rising waters.

**End of chapter Three**

**A/N: I'm sorry for breaking here, but this chapter was already dragging on to long. It was a bit tedious, I know, but it introduced characters and set it up for the next chapter. I'll release the next part (When I have it written) this Saturday. It'll have the battle I promised.**

**Edit: I decided that I actually like the break here. It kind of fits. **

**If you enjoyed the story and want to ask me questions, you can either send me a PM, or contact me via Twitter at Joshua Bevers infernezor or facebook by the name of Jay Xe. I'll respond to any and all questions, concerns, or people just saying hello ^.^**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Yea, things and stuff. I received a few 'God, this is awful', and other reviews of a similar and equally unhelpful nature. If you are going to review negatively (which I'm not opposed to) at least make it constructive and tell me why you hated it. Reviews, like the one seen above, only make me believe that either you're a troll, or incapable of constructive criticism. I apologize for the mini-rant, but I kind of needed to get that off my chest.**

**Enjoy the story. **

**Edit: It's been edited.**

**Chapter Four**

**It was Because of You**

Naruto hit the ground, landing in a heap on his side, gazing placidly at the tree line where Hoid used to be standing, straight-backed and silent. The butler had left and Naruto couldn't blame him for it. The performance he was putting on was pitiful, even to his standards. In the end, it was just as the Kyuubi had said to him. He was weak. He couldn't bring himself to attack his sister.

A three-pronged kunai buried itself into the ground in front of his face. A quick flash and his sister was crouching before him, hand wrapped around the hilt of the blade.

'_She hasn't mastered it.'_ Naruto thought dully, as she grinned predatorily at him. '_She still has to use the Kunai as a physical anchor and make contact with it.'_

The Hiraishin's creation in Konoha was inevitable, giving its other trademark jutsu. It just so happened to be his father to have made it reality. Without comparison, the Flying Thunder God was without equal. But if you had the opportunity to see it multiple times without having to fear for your life, you'd see where the technique drew it's roots from.

The Hiraishin was remarkably similar to both The Body Flicker and Replacement, in that they were both high-speed techniques that distorted space.

Heruko kicked him in the gut, sending him skidding across the training ground clearing.

'_How has she not noticed that I'm just playing a sandbag for her?'_ Naruto wondered as he collided with a tree, cracking the bark with the force of his impact.

"The time you've spent away has weakened you, brother. I remember you being better than this before you left." Heruko taunted, grinning broadly as she approached him.

"And I remember you being nicer. Funny how things change, isn't it?" Naruto asked, standing wearily to his feet. He wasn't really physically tired so much as he was bored. Heruko utilized her Hiraishin far to predictably for him to consider her really proficient in its use. Wherever she threw the Kunai was where she would go without fail. She didn't really plan ahead or attempt any feigns. Maybe it was because she thought him weak that she wasn't taking the spar overly seriously, or maybe it was because he observed his father practicing it so often in his youth and had seen its true master use it.

Heruko's grin vanished faster than a plate of Barbeque in front of an Akimichi.

"I thought this was supposed to be private. Only your butler was supposed to be here."

"It was supposed to be." Naruto said, sighing again, his eyes lazily drifting over to where Hoid now stood stolidly, along with Sasuke and a very disappointed looking Jango.

"I thought it best to bring some outside incentive, sir." Hoid said placidly.

Jango, however, was glaring at him.

"What the hell is this?" he hissed, dark purple gleam entering the corner of his left eye.

"I can't hurt her, Jango." Naruto said, wiping a bit of dried blood from his forehead. The cut the blood had come from had healed long ago.

Jango just stared at him for a long moment, Sasuke and Hoid standing to the side silently.

"You really are stupid." Jango said eventually. "Even I can see what's really bothering your sister."

Heruko turned her glare on Jango, who blinked at her in response.

"You know nothing, simpleton." She spat.

"Then this simpleton will just have to take over for you in pummeling some sense into your beloved brother." Jango said, suddenly becoming inordinately cheerful.

"Whatever." Heruko snorted, going stand beside Sasuke and Hoid at the edge of the clearing. "I'm done making my point anyway."

'_Yes, sister.'_ Naruto thought. '_You've made it more than clear that you've gone and grown up.'_

_**Line Break**_

Jango was bouncing on his heels; excited for the can ass kickass he was about to open upon his friend. It was for his own good, really. This moping, mucking, pickleish creature that had replaced his normally upbeat friend was pissing him off.

" Your academy Basic Three as a base work for you?" Jango asked as he began to stretch out.

"I suppose." His friend said half heartedly while stealing a glance at where his sister stood, a bored expression plastered across her face as she stood next to Sasuke, who, for his part, looked fairly interested. But that was only natural. Sasuke had actually warmed up to them after the bar escapade.

Jango still thought the Uchiha still needed a really good jacket to cheer him up.

'_Maybe I'll trade him a good jacket for one of those swords he keeps above his door. I should probably knock next time I visit his compound as well, or at least announce that I'm around.'_

"Any bans?" his blonde friend asked half-heartedly.

'_I'm probably going to enjoy this far more than I should.'_ Jango thought.

"No Kage Bunshin." Jango said.

'_Yea, that move has to go first. That will cut his mobility in half… And people say I don't plan before a fight… pshh, what do they know? I wonder how much Blondie would object if I try and kill him with his own shoe?'_

**Line Break**

"What are they doing?" Heruko asked.

Sasuke glanced at the Uzumaki heir. To him it seemed rather obvious what they were doing. But then again, not everyone was gifted with the Uchiha's powers of observation. What a pity it must be to be normal.

"Deciding on what they won't use during their fight." He replied.

"Naruto's a Genin, how many techniques can he have?" Heruko asked.

Sasuke huffed slightly. He may have loosened up, or as Jango put it, 'been right corrupted by us bastards' but he didn't think he would ever enjoy being blatantly disrespected by anyone.

"Enough that they have to decide what not to use." He replied, enjoying the subterfuge.

'_I'm beginning to sound just like them.'_ Sasuke mused.

He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

"It'll still be boring." Heruko stated with certainty. "It'll be like watching grass fight."

"Yet, you remain." Sasuke pointed out.

"Why are you here anyway?" Heruko asked with a frown. She didn't like the new change the Uchiha seemed to be going through. He was an exemplary soldier before he went to retrieve her brother, but now… he was acting more like an heir.

During their discussions the day previously the Uchiha had actually commented once or twice on how he thought things should be handled concerning Gato Corp. Voicing an opinion during a meeting was something that he had never done before.

'_But he is the Uchiha head._' She reminded herself. '_It's easy to forget that at times. He almost never bothers with the council. He doesn't play the game that I and the rest of the nobles play.'_

It made her shiver when she thought of The Game. The Game wasn't like playing Shogi or Go, it was so much better. It was played with real people, for real gain, be it money, pleasure, or simply for distraction.

The greatest play she had ever made was when she had toppled three rising merchant houses with a single stroke of a pen. The planning and execution to get to that point had taken months, but in the end, the pen was the only direct action required.

'_Like dominoes they fell.'_ Heruko thought with glee.

"I was drinking with Jango, making sure that he didn't get into trouble on his first day here when Hoid came" Sasuke glance at where the Butler had excused himself to go prepare the Namikaze's carriage for their return, "and said that he needed Jango. I tagged along. Hopefully they'll be up for a spar once they are through with each other, but I doubt it." Sasuke responded.

"Why would you want to spar them?" Heruko asked, as she watched the idiot, Jango, unseal a neatly folded, tan robe from a scroll he pulled out of his jacket. Quickly taking off his duster, Jango sealed it into the scroll he had previously kept his jacket in.

"You'll see," Sasuke said, watching Heruko carefully out of the corner of his eye.

**Line Break**

"No Wiinnd." Jango said, placing a strange elongated hum on the word as he carefully tested each of the four, long strips of cloth that hung off of his robe's back, making sure that there weren't any tears or rips in the fabric. While the robe could operate well enough when damaged, it lost much of its efficiency when he had to redirect chakra flows throughout the threads. That would take time, time when versing the walking pickle he wouldn't have.

"No Deepening Void." The blond said. "And of course I won't use Wiinndd."

Naruto was still standing by the tree he had been kicked into, the bark bearing an imprint where he had impacted. Naruto's continued impassiveness was really beginning to annoy Jango. The blonde appeared perfectly pleased to just continue restricting their game until all the fun would be soaked from it.

"That'll be enough." Jango said, tossing on the robe.

"We wouldn't want to bore the watchers, now would we?"

Naruto shrugged and Jango attacked, roaring in anger as he slammed his spiritual energy into his robes. Cloth came to life as it straightened and hardened, thrusting at Naruto like four spears.

**Line Break**

"We wouldn't want to bore the watchers, now would we?" Jango asked.

Naruto shrugged, he didn't really care. It wouldn't really change anything. Even if he did prove his strength to Heruko, she would only work against him. She wanted him to be his puppet, and was perfectly willing to use force to get what she wanted. He wouldn't fight his younger sister.

Jango screamed in anger, a fury Naruto hadn't witnessed in a long time.

He was so startled by his usually cheerful friend's wrath that Naruto stepped back in surprise as the four javelin-like weapons hurtled towards him.

That was a mistake.

The unnecessary movement had been sluggish, and had given the deceptively fast weapons plenty of time to cover the distance between the two.

'_What the hell is Jango thinking?' _Naruto thought irritably as he angled his body in between the missiles, two of them cutting into his shoulder and side. The shallow wounds weren't serious and a quick flare of chakra mended both injuries. '_Does he intend to kick this stupid spar up to Jounin or higher level?'_

Jango leaped forward with a spiritually enhanced jump, causing the weapon on his back to crumple slightly with the force he propelled himself at. The monk launched a blow at Naruto head that he easily dodged by angling his head to the left; Taijutsu was never Jango's specialty.

'_So why-'_

Naruto's thoughts were cut off as the previously limp strips suddenly came to life again. Moving with a renewed vigor, they wrapped themselves around Naruto, binding his arms to his sides so he couldn't fight back and lifting him off the ground so he couldn't run. The monk had improved in long distance chakra manipulation if he had managed to get chakra that far down the length of the cloth in so short a time. Otherwise Naruto wouldn't have been caught so off guard.

"Fight back, you bastard!" Jango howled, his face contorted in rage. With eyes burning with the infernos of hell, Jango delivered a devastating right hook to Naruto's unprotected stomach.

'_No pickle jokes?'_ Naruto thought as he coughed flecks of blood across Jango's enraged face, blackness creeping across his vision. Just because Jango wasn't good at the fancy moves that were incorporated into Taijutsu didn't mean that Jango wasn't ungodly strong.

"Fight back or I'll fucking kill you here! Be damned the promise I made you!"

**Line Break**

Heruko raised a delicate eyebrow in surprise. The idiot friend of her brothers was certainly fast. Not as fast as she was with her Hiraishin, but certainly fast enough to be considered jounin in speed. It wasn't a wonder that her brother was getting his ass handed to him so bad.

Heruko saw Sasuke flinch out of the corner of her eye as Jango delivered a blow that made the air around them vibrate with its force.

"The man hits like Tsunade." Sasuke muttered, idly rubbing his stomach in phantom sympathy for the blond.

"That would explain how my brother made it so long alone. He made a strong enough friend." Heruko muttered.

Sasuke shook his head. "No."

Heruko turned to face the Uchiha.

"What do you mean?" She demanded, folding her arms in front of her chest.

"I've spared with them both during my return." Sasuke said.

"Against orders?" Heruko asked.

Sasuke shrugged, continuing, "Jango is very, very good. He has power, enough of the monk's equivalent of chakra to be considered a Kage, and enough battle experience to put many a Jounin to shame."

"You're only reinforcing my point." Heruko said drolly, interrupting Sasuke.

"And in the short time it took us to get back," The Uchiha continued, ignoring Heruko, "I only ever beat Jango a few times. He could very nearly be considered a Kage in terms of sheer power."

"So what? I will be a Kage in the next few years. Nothing they've done so far impresses me."

"So…" Sasuke said, smiling slightly despite himself. "I never once beat the Namikaze. I don't even know if I can say that I've come close. Neither of us has unleashed everything we have at each other. A spar and a pitched battle can yield completely different results. "

Heruko frowned, returning her attention to the battle, slightly unnerved that she hadn't detected any hint of deception from the Uchiha.

**Line Break**

Naruto hurtled through the same tree that'd Heruko had thrown him through, only this time he continued through it, as well as the two behind it. Dust was kicked up by the tree's impact with the dry ground, obscuring him from Jango's view.

Naruto lay on the ground, a tree branch laying on top of him, words from his past reverberating through his questionably concussed head.

"Dreams… don't ever really die, Naruto, you take them to the grave." – his first circus master.

"You're very smart…you see? No, of course you don't see. That would require you to be stupid." – an old man he'd met at a pub.

"The world pushes us without mercy, and when some push back the world points and cries _evil._" – Gaara, Kazekage of Sand.

"It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them." – his father, Minato Namikaze, The Fourth Hokage.

Naruto stood, pushing the tree off of him as he rose. He wouldn't apologize to Jango. His friend wouldn't want it.

He strode through the settling debris calmly. It was funny what a tree to the cranium could do for one's spirit, but maybe that was the concussion's fault. He no longer cared about what his sister would do. That was her decision. He would steer the Namikaze house how _he_ felt it should be.

Naruto entered the field where Jango stood – his four strips of cloth hovering in the air around him – Sasuke and Heruko off to the side of the clearing.

"Are you doing moping?" Jango asked.

Naruto's response was a simple line, one that made the frown on Jango's mouth turn into one of focus.

"Freedom." He breathed.

Naruto vanished.

"Shit." Jango swore, barely managing to get two of his strips around in time to block the punch Naruto threw at his face. Although blocked, the blow still sent Jango hurtling backwards through the air like a rock from a sling.

Naruto vanished again, only to reappear in front of Jango, his leg already swinging in a round kick. Jango thrust two of his strips – the two that hadn't been blown back Naruto's punch – into the ground, launching himself up and above Naruto's kick.

Naruto vanished again.

It wasn't Hiraishin as Jango was sure Heruko was probably thinking. Naruto didn't like the technique overly much, despite its undisputable power. No, if Naruto had known that technique Jango would have banned it.

What Naruto was using was almost as dangerous, if a bit easier to predict. He was using Kawarimi to a degree that many thought mythological. It was one of the Blonde's favorite techniques.

'_He probably set up all the points while Heruko was kicking him around.'_ Jango thought as he used his supports to dodge the flying kick from the Naruto that burst from the trees. Once he missed, Naruto vanished again, a single leaf falling from where he used to be.

Kawarimi was the exchanging of presence between the user and the object desired, usually a log, but almost any object of respectable density would work. The object – infused by touch - being switched with was usually large so that it could take the infusion of chakra and not burst from charge. Naruto had mastered the ability to condense his chakra into a dense, mass of roiling power. Although small in relative size – many mistook what he had to be about a Genin maybe Chunin in strength - what he did have was potent enough to rival a Bijuu in raw power. The condensed chakra allowed him to infuse objects as small as the leaf that was drifting to the ground.

"**Radiant Pillar."** Jango intoned, clapping his hands together, blasting a wave of purple, spiritual energy outwards to wash away all the Kawarimi spots his opponent might have set up.

"**Swift Release: Wind's breath." **Naruto said from where he'd appeared below.

Naruto ran up the air, stepping like he would if he was running up a flight of stairs.

"Son of a pickle." Jango said, watching as Naruto barreled towards him. "When did he master that one?"

Jango had time to prepare as Naruto made his way up towards him. Feeding enough chakra to condense the air slowed him down considerably. It wasn't slow by any means, but it would give him enough time.

Jango thrust his hand outwards, fingers splayed wide, purple, spiritual energy gathering a few centimeters away from his palm.

The technique was similar in concept to the Rasengan that Naruto had tried to teach him. Chakra manipulation was beyond him though, his spiritual side completely dominated the two sides required to use the energy his friend did.

The orb grew larger as three pillars of purple light splintered out a few meters and began revolving around the central core.

'_Almost there.'_ Jango thought as Naruto neared him, eyes wild.

Two smaller reddish purple orbs spring into being around the core and began revolving.

'_Now!'_

"**Sage's Requiem: First path's banishment."** Jango whispered, his body growing heavier as his spiritual energy drained.

The spiritual attack fired and three black beams flew through the air towards Naruto - who stopped his climb and stared at the attack impassively.

"Flashy, but imperfect. You were too hasty this round Jango."

Naruto vanished, reappearing next to Jango. With a deft flick of the wrist he redirected the attack skywards by slapping both of Jango's hands up and grabbed his friend's face in one smooth motion.

"I win." He said. "Rasengan beats face."

"Mhrmflfm" Jango replied through Naruto's palm.

"No, I don't think you could." Naruto said, grinning broadly, only to feel a light tap on his back.

Turning his head slightly to the side, Naruto saw one of the strips of cloth that Jango used as weapons hovering slightly behind him, seemingly floating on the breeze.

"Huh, forgot about that." Naruto said, scratching his head and smiling a toothy grin.

They both dropped to the ground, Jango using his cloak and Naruto mostly just hovering downwards, wobbling occasionally as his control slipped.

Once they reached the ground Naruto clapped his friend on the back.

"That was fun. When did you finish that last attack?" He said.

"I haven't yet, it takes far to long to pull off." Jango replied sullenly, reaching into his pocket and pulling out two scrolls and a hand full of crumpled leaves. "Shouldn't have used it- when the hell did these…"

Jango closed his eyes and smiled.

Naruto grinned as well, replying, "Since the beginning, when you wrapped me in your robe and punched me. I dropped them into your pocket then. It's also why you're monk purge thing didn't get them." Naruto said, smiling back. "I may have been in a funk but I wasn't dead. I always give myself options."

"You didn't trade anything, did you?" Jango asked, inspecting his scroll carefully.

"That's only you that does that." Naruto said, spinning Jango's apartment keys around his finger.

Jango scowled and snatched them back.

"That wasn't a fair trade." He snapped. "Leaves of this quality aren't worth a home."

"I've seen how you treat your home. It won't be worth much in a week."

"That's what the deposit is for." Jango said, pouting slightly and he slipped on his duster, resealing his robe.

"Where's my hat?"

**Line Break**

"That was fairly tame. Naruto's wind affinity is always something else to see in action." Sasuke mused, as he watched the two banter back-and-forth. He may have loosened up over the past week but he still felt no inclination to join them. Three was still a crowd in his opinion.

"Naruto could have died if that thing had hit him." Heruko noted. Sasuke didn't let the bead of sweat that dropped down her temple escape his attention.

'_So she does care about him, though I can't be certain to what extent. Anyway, she doesn't want him dead.'_

"Nah, it'd have certainly knocked him down for a while, but the Namikaze isn't so easily beaten."

"How can you be certain?" Heruko asked.

"I've put a Chidori though his liver before." Sasuke stated flatly.

"What." Heruko asked, her tone darkening slightly.

"I thought he'd dodge." Sasuke said off-handily, gesturing vaguely. "Apparently, he's not opposed to taking attacks to guarantee a win."

"That's stupid." Heruko replied. "Ninjas are supposed to be efficient, killing machines. Not backhouse brawlers that exchanged blows thuggishly in an effort to see who went down first."

"I agree." Sasuke said. "But Naruto has a talent for making you fight down at his level."

Heruko snorted, a rather unladylike thing to do.

"This changes nothing. All this proves is that neither of them is faster than the Hiraishin. Father's and mine technique remains undefeatable."

That said, she vanished in a brief flash of yellow.

Sasuke shook his head at where she had been standing previously.

"Except that you haven't actually seen either of them really fight. All they did was flex a little muscle at each other." He said to the air, and then vanished in a swirl of leaves.

**Line Break**

Heruko reappeared in her room in the Uzumaki estate, the Hiraishin seal she used to get there fading back into the wall to await its next activation.

As always, and despite that this was her own home and thus was protected by not only guards but also an intricate seal network, she quickly scanned the area for intruders with a pulse of resonate chakra.

Nothing.

Just her four-poster bed pressed against the back wall, a vanity to the right wall, and a few desks taking up the remaining wall space where she would work and tinker with seals. Unlike her father, she never had enjoyed working out in a shed… it was just to dirty.

"Damn him." Heruko cursed, as she stomped over to her bed, thinking about her brother. "Damn him for being happy. Damn him that he found a friend out there that can put up with him. Damn him for leaving where he belongs."

'_And damn him for leaving… me.'_ Heruko finished in her mind.

She had never forgiven her brother for abandoning her when she was young. She had admired him his strength growing up as a ninja. She had admired his determination to ignore the villagers. She admired him because he was her bigger brother. She hated him because he left her alone in the world. Father and Mother were always so busy.

A single tear fell from her eye, down her stoic face, and splattered on the wooden floor below her, as she remembered hearing her big brother and father argue that night. She had been so scared as they yelled at each other.

'_I hid under the bed for two hours.'_ Heruko thought, glaring at the wall as if it had insulted her. '_I hid as they argued until Naruto left the house only to be followed by dad.'_

Heruko growled lowly to herself as she remembered that her father hadn't come home for hours. When he did come back, with his clothes torn and dirty, he hadn't brought her big brother with him. Although uninjured, it was obvious her father had fought with Naruto.

He hadn't said anything as Heruko greeted him at the door, asking if Naruto would be along later for dinner later. Father had just pushed past her into the house, gone to his room, and spent the night there without so much as a shower.

Heruko snarled, lashing out and splintering the wood of one of the bed's posters with a backhand.

It was her brothers fault that dad had died. He broke her father's heart, and she wouldn't forgive him for it.

**Line Break**

The Third Tsuchikage sat at his specially crafted desk – on account of his annoyingly small stature – thoughtlessly rubbing the tip of his white, triangular beard with his right hand. It was a subconscious habit that he had developed when he was deep in thought.

His fellow Kage would no doubt be quite bemused if they could see him now. Onoki the aged mole rat, they no doubt called him. Fools, the lot of them. Even if he was short, had a lamentably large red nose, and was almost older than any two of them combined, he was still more than capable of going toe-to-toe with them in single combat.

Onoki ceased his idle bear rubbing and tapped the Iwa forehead protector that lay on his desk, eliciting a dull, metallic 'tink' noise as his fingernail made contact with the plate.

Gathering his green, red-trimmed, robes of office around him, he snatched the metal headband off the desk and walked over to the trash on the other side of the room where he deposited the offensive hunk of carbonized rock into the bin – which would take the object directly to his tower's incinerator. He was tired of looking at it.

Resuming his place at his desk, he sent a single, heated glare at the pile of papers stacked neatly at the corner of his desk. He wasn't in the mood to deal with that at the moment. The matter of the Iwa headband with a long, thin, scratch through the nations symbol was weighing to heavily on his mind for him to bother with petty politics.

'_Yet another defector.'_ He mused, tapping a finger on the desk in thought. '_That would make this one the fifth this month.'_

Things were getting out of hand. Deserters, ordinarily, were easily dealt with by a few hunter-nin in the matter of a few days tops. If, failing that, they were usually turned in for their bounties by either another country or a freelance bounty hunter within a week. The problem was that none of the five ninja who had gone missing, leaving only a marked headband, were yet to be found.

That was a problem. No, that was an understatement. This was a catastrophe of epic proportions. Ninja were supposed to be the shinning beacons of loyalty to a village, so much so that they would sacrifice themselves for the safety of the village. The knowledge that five ninja abandoned the village within the span of a month could not leave his office.

It was with a heavy heart that he signed for the job reassignment of the two assistants who'd wrote and delivered the report. It didn't really matter where they were reassigned, just so long as they had as little social interaction as possible.

'_It doesn't get any easier.'_ The Tsuchikage grumbled in the sanctity of his own mind as he put the final flourishes on his signature.

**Line Break**

Orochimaru, Otokage of Sound, stood staring at his plain, office door, twirling one of his ninja's scarred headband in his right hand.

"This makes five to date." He hissed, yellow eyes panning around the room as he might spot the perpetrator. Normally, he was the one who made other village's ninja disappear and turn traitor. It was no small annoyance to him that the tables had turned.

**Line Break**

Mei Terumi, The Forth Mizukage, stood atop her tower scowling out over her village that was blanketed in the evening's mist. Her thoughts were on the wounded headband that sat on her desk back in her office.

'_Four ninja… possibly five if Kinto doesn't return this evening. Who is responsible for this?'_

Ninja died. That was unavoidable. They expected it. They trained to prevent that inevitability. For four – possibly five – ninja to go rogue so quickly, that was troubling. Her people had survived civil unrest, revolution some might call it. Those under her command she knew by name and had met their families, taken supper with them. They were not the type to suddenly turn traitor like this.

Someone was systematically hunting her people. And she would make them pay.

**Line Break**

Ay, Raikage of Kumo, lifted his two hundred and ten pound weight for the six hundred and forty-fifth time. Sweat dripped down his dark skinned face and into his white workout attire as he strained with the weight. Ordinarily he would feel a sense of accomplishment at the feat; it would have meant that he'd managed to stay in one place for longer than twenty-minutes. He didn't like being cooped up. But today, he had far too much on his mind to celebrate. Five of his ninja were missing, three of whom were sent on a recon mission near Konoha's border. The other two had vanished from inside their apartments. He only knew this because he'd dismissed them from his office two days ago for a few days vacation.

Ay glanced at the desk where two headbands glittered at him accusatorily, as if they were saying 'It's because you couldn't protect them that our owners are gone.'

'_I'm sorry.'_ Ay apologized to the inanimate objects. '_I'll find out who did this.'_

**Line Break**

"But Gaara!" Temari objected vehemently, looking at her younger brother and Hokage with disbelieving green eyes.

"We have no evidence that they are behind this. I will not risk provoking Kumo based purely on speculation." Gaara said calmly, his usual dull monotone rolling across the room.

"That makes the second Genin this month! Not to mention the other two Chunin and Jounin on top." Temari continued, dropping the headband onto the Hokage's desk with a deadened 'thunk'.

Gaara ignored the headband his sister had all but thrown at him.

"We cannot afford a war with Kumo. They have two Bijuu and Konoha will not follow us. It would be best if we discreetly looked for answers and then confront them openly when we have all the facts."

Temari looked at him for a long moment before finally saying in a voice barely audible over the sounds of the city outside, "One of the missing Genin is my student."

"I am aware." Gaara said heavily, his eyes never wavering from his sisters. "My decision stands."

"I hadn't ever though of you as weak before." Temari spat, turning on her heels and leaving the office without asking for dismissal.

**End of Chapter Four**

**Omake**

Naruto exited the small shop, enjoying the weight of a new batch of kunai to replace the ones he'd lost over the years. As he stepped into the road and made his way towards his estate when he noticed a chicken through a break in the buildings to his left, bustling its way down the road parallel to his own. It was crisscrossing back and forth across the street like a rabbit would to try and avoid a fox. It seemed to be in quite the hurry for your average poultry, Naruto noticed.

"Come back!" A familiar voice called desperately. "I have so many questions for you!"

The chicken's pace increased, forgoing its street crossing motions and booking it for the nearest alley.

"NOooo!" The voice came again, louder this time, it's owner came closer.

'_Is that-?'_

Jango burst into view, chasing after the chicken with a fierce determination, his tan duster waving in the breeze as he cut his way across Konoha.

Naruto blinked as he lost track of his friend.

"Does he really need that age old question answered that badly?" Naruto asked of the air.

**End of Omake**

**A/N:** **So there it is. The reason Heruko hates Naruto so much. In case you didn't notice, I purposely engineered Heruko to be emotionally weak. Not everyone in the world is a confident, well-to-do person, who just goes out and get 'em. (Whoever the them is, I never could figure that out.)**

**Tell me what you think of it. **

**If you enjoyed the story and want to ask me questions, you can either send me a PM, or contact me via Twitter at Joshua Bevers infernezor, or facebook by the name of Jay Xe. I'll respond to any and all questions, concerns, or even just people just saying hello ^.^**


	5. Hello

**Hello,**

**Friends and Readers**

**Don't panic. This isn't one of those kinds of notes. I still intend to write this story. I'm merely posting this to explain my longer than average disappearance.**

**First of all, it's been a crazy week for me. I met Johnny Depp, chilled with my friends, worked (That one never changes), and generally made poor use of my week in terms of fan fiction. **

**However, this break has also brought some questions to the forefront of my mind, such as 'what do I want to do with my fan fiction 'life', for lack of a better word' and I came to some interesting conclusions.**

**I still intend to finish all the stories I've started, but I'm no longer going to be jumping from story to story like a madman. I'll also probably be taking longer to produce a chapter. Before you beat me down, allow me to explain.**

**Until recently, I've really only been half-assing most of my work. It's legible, but ultimately uninspired. I've rushed so many scenes and plain out skipped others trying desperately to advance a deadened plotline. I can't do that anymore. It's not fair to you guys who are kind enough to read my ramblings.**

**As such, I've gone back and edited previous chapters and added about 10k words in new scenes, better descriptions, and grammar checks. I still make no claim to being a grammar god (My severe dyslexia pretty much forbids that), but it should be a bit better now.**

**I've also made an effort to make myself more accessible to those with questions, concerns, or don't want to make a fan fiction account by setting up a facebook account and twitter for those who want to ask me something. I won't post it here, but it'll be at the end of every chapter previous, and will be in the future. **

**But for those of you who don't care about any of that, the next chapter will be out in a week or so.**

**As always,**

**Your humble writer,**

**Infernezor**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Yea, things and stuff. **

**People don't seem to enjoy what I did with Heruko, and honestly, I can see why. She is an emotionally weak creature. She respected – too much really – Naruto, because in her eyes he was flawless. Then he argued with her father (She doesn't know why, that'll be explained in this chapter). After her father and brother's argument, Naruto (in her mind) abandoned her, leaving a distressed father who wasn't the same afterwards. **

**I actually modeled her after how I felt after my dog died. The vet kinda dropped the ball on diagnosing him and he died as a result. I felt angry, hurt, and above all - sad. For a long time I blamed them, even if it wasn't really logical to do so. **

**Logic, I find, rarely applies to emotions.**

**Also, an eagle-eyed reader spotted that I made a reference to 'In the Name of the Wind' with the noble's son being forces of nature. Let's see if you guys can spot another reference I made to it in this chapter. **

**Edit: I apologize for the time it took me to get this chapter out. My real life took a rather annoying turn and I was distracted by a few ideas I had to jot down on paper for fear I would forget them. **

**Edit: I got about half way through 'The Wise Man's Fear' by Patrick Rothfuss before I was forced to throw it away in a fit of rage. I'm more than slightly done with that book. I like some of the quotes, but for the most part it's just a book of pretty things to say. I use quite a few quotes, don't get me wrong, but from a plot standpoint I feel that The Wise Man's Fear went nowhere in one thousand pages. I don't claim to be better, I write rather bad and trope heavy (Read Naruto's dislike of comfortable living.) fanfiction for heaven's sake, but I expected a bit more after the fairly decent first book in the installment.**

**I escape (if only in my mind) trip up that fanfiction is worthless by accepting that fact and continuing to write it all the same, simply because for some reason I enjoy it anyway.**

**Edit: I'm sorry for the first part with Naruto. I don't know what overcame me. I might end up removing it. It fits with the story its just… yea. I got a little worked up writing it.**

**Sorry for the long A/N, on with the story.**

"He killed them with their love. That's how it is everyday… All over the word."

- The Green Mile.

**Chapter Five**

**The Best of Us Can Find Happiness in Misery**

**Memories of Youth**

A thirteen-year-old Naruto made his way up his front driveway after his 'adventures' after leaving the academy. His deep blue eyes scanned the yard carefully, an air of frustration clung about him as he stomped his way up to the darkened house. Hopefully his father would be asleep already and he could sneak through the house and up to his room without being noticed. He wasn't supposed to be out so late on a weekday and he most certainly wasn't supposed to be spotted in blood. That might lead to some awkward questions.

He could have washed the blood off with the hose but his dad would hear the water faucet turn on and wake up to investigate. That would lead to even more interesting questions, such as 'why did you feel that you had to hide that from me?'

With the bullshit that had gone on today, he might actually answer that question truthfully for once. He was almost at his wit's end with how the council treated his father and how they turned a blind eye to how he was treated, simply because of what he carried. His dad would, of course, for the asking punish everyone one who attacked him with the full extent of the law but... they would hate Minato for it. That much Naruto was certain about. If his father went after and actually punished his attackers they would turn their annoying vast attention to him, and make his job as Hokage even harder.

'_Idiots.'_ He thought scathingly.

Naruto quickly ran a hand through his bloodstained and tousled mess blond hair in a futile attempt to slick it back and hopefully make the dried blood less noticeable. Letting out a huff of annoyance and giving up on the task for now, Naruto deviated off the path to subtly check the windows to make sure his dad wasn't waiting up for him.

After a cursory glance around the living room, Naruto scampered to the front door and turned the knob carefully so that it wouldn't click. He'd learned from experience that Minato was a very light sleeper, and prone to waking up if feathers even so much as signed to each other in the middle of the night.

Closing the door with the barest hint of noise, the blond slunk over to a picture of his family that hung over the entranceway's table and tapped the portrait, channeling a little chakra into the fame to deactivate the alarm seal. Half of his mission accomplished, he darted over to the stairs, using chakra to cushion his footfalls. Skipping the squeaky step with practiced ease, Naruto made his way down the hallway, praying to all the Gods, past, present, and future, for safety as he passed by his parent's doorway.

The door to his bedroom was already open, which was a blessing from God himself, because if he had to open it no force known to man would have shielded the sound from his dad's ludicrously keen ears. Once inside the relative safety of his own room he almost let loose a sigh of relief before catching himself and thinking better of it. It wouldn't due to risk it.

Naruto gingerly began to remove his shirt, pulling the torn silk shirt over his head. He drew in a sharp breath when the rough end of a bit of torn fabric snagged on a long, jagged cut that ran down the length of his back that both his natural and demon enhanced healing hadn't healed yet. His recovery speed and control over his inner demon's chakra had increased under the careful guidance of both his mother and father, but the uneven cut was deep enough that it would take an hour or so before it stitched itself up.

'_That's going to leave a mark_.' Naruto noted dryly, craning his head around so he could get a bit of a view of his back.

A rather drunk moron wielding a broken bottle as if it were a battle-axe had preformed the inflamed vivisection that now lay festering on his back. A few too many rich want-to-be merchant nobles and their servants had indulged themselves past what many would consider proper, and had decided to head out into the town to find entertainment. Unfortunately, that was also happened to be the time Naruto was finishing up his couple of hours of after-hours training at the academy. He was a Hokage's son and had certain academic expectations to fulfill. He wouldn't let himself fall behind and risk embarrassing his father, a task that was become more and more bothersome as time went on.

He'd been caught flat-footed and entirely unprepared by the mob. To make matters worse the bottle swinging fool was only one of the many who'd found sport in the relatively defenseless Genin. Sure, he was a very good academy student and although his marks weren't the highest, a few civilians would hardly pose any sort of problem for him, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was that he was a Hokage's son. Worse, he was the Kyuubi's Jinchuuriki, inheriting the position from his mother, who'd lost control of it during his birth. At least, that's what he'd been told.

He would never accuse his parents of lying to him to their faces, but something about their story situation seemed off, falsified.

Glancing down Naruto took in the state of his pants.

'_Better than I could have hoped for.'_ He thought.

Aside from a few tears and cuts in the fabric here and there the pants came out relatively unscathed.

"Finally decided to come home then?" The familiar and forcedly, calm voice of his father came from the doorway, jolting Naruto from his self-inspection. It was a tone Naruto recognized his father used when dealing with particularly annoying guests when he was forced to sit in and watch how his father managed Konoha. The young blond was, after all, being groomed to take his father's place.

Naruto's head whipped around to where his father stood leaning against the doorframe. He was dressed in the baggy blue t-shirt and sweat pants he used for sleeping or relaxing around the house when he wasn't on duty or tinkering in his workshop. Minato's wild blond hair both father and son shared stuck up at odd angles due in part to the fact that he wasn't wearing his customary headband, but mostly because he'd just been sleeping, pillows did strange and curious things to Namikaze hair.

The light flicked on, revealing Minato's stern, light blue eyes. Those eyes hardened when he took in Naruto's torn clothes and bloody hair.

"What happened?" His father asked, his tone leaving no room for argument.

"I got the worst of a spar today." Naruto lied easily, shrugging dismissively.

He'd practiced the shrug for hours in front of a mirror, tuning the action so that it conveyed the perfect balance of nonchalance and disinterest.

The corners of Minato's mouth tugged down into a frown.

"A spar where the academy instructors allow their students to use sharpened kunai? Funny how they wouldn't alert their Hokage to this change in curriculum." His father noted, calling Naruto's bluff a hint of reproach in his voice.

Naruto cringed internally. He'd been practicing with sharpened kunai and sparing with his shadow clones for so long now that he'd forgotten that the academy used blunted weapons. Thinking quickly Naruto decided that a half-baked loaf was better then none at all.

"I was sparing with my shadow clones." Naruto said, letting shame, annoyance at being called out, and a fair amount of stubbornness seep into his tone. His mother had often remarked that if being Hokage didn't pan out, then Naruto could follow his true calling as an actor or a circus performer.

"I know you told me not to, but I'm ready." Naruto said, drawing himself up defiantly and looking his father directly in the eyes.

"And were some of your clones using rusty kunai or broken glass during your spar?" His father asked, his icy eyes hardening even further.

Naruto blinked, an action his annoyingly perceptive father didn't miss.

"The cuts are too jagged and uneven to be made by forged and well-kept steel." His father pointed out. "After enough years settling bar disagreements and war you learn to recognize the difference."

'_Stupid.'_ Naruto berated himself mentally. '_Why didn't you think of that? You noted the unevenness of the cut earlier yourself!'_

Some of his frustration must have shown on his face and his father misinterpreted it as him preparing to lie again, a fair assessment as that was exactly what he was preparing to do.

"I do not appreciate dishonesty, son." Minato warned, iron creeping into his voice.

Naruto flushed hotly, snapping out thoughtlessly, "Neither do I, but I still have to tolerate it daily from the instructors at the academy."

Minato frowned, thin lines creasing his forehead as his delicate brows met just above his eyes. At that moment, Naruto wanted nothing more than to rip off the two blond bangs that framed his father's face.

Minato's frown deepened as he sensed Naruto's spike in anger. Straightening himself, he took several neat strides to where Naruto stood, and ignoring his son's indignant protests, summoned up the seal that kept the Kyuubi contained.

Naruto watched his father's eyes scan the matrix over his stomach, looking into Naruto as much as he was examining his body.

"There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it…" Minato muttered.

'_Of course that's what he thinks.'_ Naruto thought, realization dawning on him. '_I let my emotions get the better of me for a moment and he assumes it has something to do with the Kyuubi, not that I might actually be angry.'_

With a hard push, Naruto knocked his father away from him. Minato rolled with the blow with all the grace of a cat during a hunt, not even appearing phased by the action.

The younger blond turned over his right wrist, finding one of his father's Hiraishin seals on his wrist, placed there by the brushing of his father's finger tips as he rolled away. Naruto stared at it for a few moments.

It seemed to him that the seal on his arm represented everything he viewed his father doing as apocryphal. His father was the most powerful man known in the elemental nations, without contest as far as Naruto knew. Yet, he let himself be knocked around by the council, following their whims if they so much as hinted at the phrase, 'it's what the Third would have done.'

As far as Naruto could see, his father had never forgiven himself for letting the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, use the Dead Reaper's Seal instead of himself, the creator of the technique. A technique that had brought the hatred the people felt for the tailed beasts squarely onto Naruto's shoulders. Even the Fourth's yearly assurance that Naruto was the prison keeper and not the prisoner did little to convince certain sections of Konoha's populace.

With a snarl, Naruto placed a clawed hand over the seal and molded his chakra in a condensed ball in his palm. Touching all five fingers of his left hand over the seal, he overloaded the command matrix in the core of the seal, disabling the location diagram. From there the seal was unable to maintain its cohesion. With a hiss and the smell of acrid smoke filling the air, the seal vanished.

Minato blinked in surprise, he hadn't thought that his son was nearly that far along in Fuuinjutsu for something like that. It seemed like only yesterday he was teaching Naruto about the relatively simple explosion tags.

"Deconstruction is always easier than construction." Naruto growled in explanation, glaring at his father venomously.

"That was well done." Minato complemented, a bit of mirth washing away the edge in his eyes. "You were a bit slow, though. You can't let yourself be distracted for so long in combat."

Naruto snorted derisively.

"I didn't realize we were fighting, Lord Hokage."

The mirth in Minato's eyes vanished along with the hard edge leaving only a blank mask, like cold slate in their place. Naruto pressed on hotly, ignoring the blank expression his father was giving him, letting his pent up emotions burst free like water from a dam.

"In fact, I didn't even realize I was being interrogated in the first place, Your Lordship. Next time, please extend to me the due courtesy of a week's notice, or at least arrest me and let Ibiki do it properly. God knows it'll please your subjects to no end once they get word of it. It wouldn't take long, only a few hours depending on who catches wind of it first. It'll only be a few more steps from there to flat out executing me-"

"That's enough." Minato cut across Naruto's explosive rant coldly. His next words were spoken slowly at first, gaining volume as he continued. "I thought I taught you better than this. I thought I taught you to control your emotions as well as to respect others. Apparently, I was mistaken."

Naruto glared into his father's eyes, matching his impassive expression with his own heated one. For a slight instant, Naruto could have seen worry reflected in his father's eyes, not for fear of anything Naruto would do to him. But for fear that something would be lost. Naruto had seen that same look in the eyes of defeated merchant and noble's when their plans hadn't worked out the way they thought that it would.

There was a slight rustling sound from the hallway and Heruko appeared at the doorway, her dark-red sleeping gown trailing on the floor behind her, blond-red hair mused like her mother's was when roused from a deep sleep.

"Daddy?" She asked, her voice quavering. "Why are you and brother fighting?"

"We aren't fighting." Minato's said gently, forcing his voice down.

Heruko looked her father's warm, kindly blues eyes and then to her brother's cold, angry eyes, a frozen storm seeming to swirl in their murky depths.

'_Naruto has been so mean to everyone.'_ She thought, recoiling from her brother's glare. '_He is even mean to daddy at dinner times too.'_

Mustering what little courage she could, Heruko spoke in a tremulous voice, unable to keep the fear she felt from creeping into her voice. "If mommy were here you two wouldn't be fighting." She didn't like the small, red tendrils of color that were appearing and snaking their way through her brother's blue eyes like water serpents in a lake.

Minato didn't know what to say to his child. She had never known her mother. Kushina had died giving birth to Heruko, complications during labor.

"I think it's best if we take a evening walk, father." He forced through tight lips, thin with suppressed rage.

Minato looked at Naruto, not missing the red chakra suffusing his son's eyes, the early warning signs that he was losing control.

Nodding his reply, Minato kissed his daughter on the forehead and ushered her out the door.

"Go to bed, sweetie. Naru and I are just having a disagreement; everything will be fine by the time we make it home later."

Heruko pattered down the hall, casting worried looks back over her shoulder at her father and brother before entering her room.

Once she was out of sight, Minato turned to face Naruto, his expression growing dark once more.

"Calm yourself. This is exactly the kind of situation that the council will take advantage of. I've warned you about this when we first started training with your bijuu." He said, the steely tone that had been only hinted at before was set firmly in place now.

Naruto looked down at the back of his hands, desperately trying to rein his emotions in, using every trick to distract himself or cool his emotions that he knew. He even tried the childish method of counting to ten. Bright Orange-red chakra began bubbling up from his skin, leaking out and diffusing through his skin like so much luminescent gas.

"Damn it." Minato swore, reaching out and gripping his son by the shoulder.

Both of them vanished in a flash of yellow, reappearing in a clearing far behind the Hokage's monument. Releasing Naruto and stepping back, Minato asked, "What's gotten you so angry, son?"

Naruto looked up, locking his now crimson red eyes with his father's blue.

"Why do you let those council bastards control you so much?" Naruto asked. "Why do you play their games when you are so much more powerful than them?"

"Who attacked you?" Minato asked.

"No one." Naruto said, turning angrily and heading towards the tree line. With each step Naruto took the grass around his feet turned a distinguished brown, dead from the amount of tainted chakra he was leaking.

"Who attacked you?" Minato asked again.

"I said, no one!" Naruto yelled, lashing out to his left with both his left arm and chakra-manifested tail.

Naruto's tone dropped to a near whisper. "It doesn't matter."

Minato walked up to Naruto, stopping at his side. Minato's fingers twitched as if he wanted to place his hand on Naruto's shoulder but was restraining himself, partly because that would no doubt anger his son further and partly because touching the chakra cloak that mantled the teen was like touching fire.

"It does matter." Minato said softly. "I can do something about it, punish those responsible."  
Naruto snorted.

"That won't solve anything and you know it."

Minato's brows creased and deep worry lines etched their way across his forehead. Of course he knew it wouldn't solve anything, hate only begot more hate. He also knew what his son's line of thinking probably was. It was most likely along the lines of 'If he were to punish Naruto's attackers their hate would only spread to him, thus weakening my position as Fourth Hokage.'

Minato would have been touched if he weren't so frustrated.

Naruto suddenly turned, his mantle of red chakra receding back into him somewhat.

"I'm leaving." He announced.

The blond stood wide-eyed, as if slightly surprised that there wasn't some sort of fanfare, or something that would have trumpeted the enormity of what he'd just said. He blinked, swallowed, blinked again, a determined edge entering his eyes as he resolved himself to his proclamation.

"I'm leaving Konoha." He said once again, firmer this time.

Minato was dumbfounded, staring blankly as his son – part of his world – threatened to leave him. Minato wasn't a fool. He knew his son would eventually leave the house when he was older, eighteen maybe, but not twelve, not with that hate he smoldered with towards them all.

"I'm tired of it." Naruto said heatedly, the red-orange cloak fairing back to life. "I'm tired of avoiding them in the streets. I'm tired of being looked at as if I'm some sort of trash to be scrapped off the side of the streets. I'm so sick of caring."

"We all care son, that's what makes us human."

"We are how we're treated, father, and I'm treated like an animal. I won't stand for it any more. I just want to leave, be somewhere where I'm treated like a human being."

"You have your family." Minato pointed out diplomatically.

"A family that is busy all the time." Naruto responded angrily, for once showing his twelve years of age. "A family that has to care more for the village they live in more than each other." Naruto's expression softened, looking almost wistful. "And that's fine." He said quietly. "You wouldn't be a good Hokage if you were any different."  
Naruto refused to meet his father's eyes as he continued, "That's not for me. If I had friends maybe it'd be all right, but I don't. And I hate it. The village doesn't like me very much. I trouble sleeping at night… I have bad dreams. I wake up, scared. Sometimes it takes me a while to remember where I am. I've considered what it'd be like… to release the Kyuubi and prove them right, but that won't solve anything."

Naruto's eyes met his fathers.

"I don't like it here. I'm tired of being afraid. I've decided not to stay. I doubt they'll make a much of a fuss. Not for a demon like me."

"No one views you as a demon." Minato chided. "Besides, the world isn't safe, Naruto. I need more time to make it better."

Naruto slipped into the academy's Taijutsu stance.

"When was the last time we spared, father? When I first entered the academy three years ago? I've improved since then."

"I won't fight you, son." Minato said.

"You'll have to if you want to stop me." Naruto replied, flashing one of his blinding, wide smiles before turning and running away.

'_I won't lose him!'_ Minato though desperately, flicking one of his kunai into the nearest tree to Naruto and Hiraishined to it.

Naruto flipped, a long exaggerated movement, focusing most of his momentum in his foot that he whiplashed directly at Minato's head. The Hokage brought up both his arms in a cross block, catching the boy's leg in between his arms. The impact jarred Minato's arm, surprising the Hokage with how much momentum the small boy could generate. Twisting his block into a grab, he latched both hands onto Naruto's leg and swung him around, careful not to put too much force into the action so as to hurt his son, and flung him into towards a tree.

Naruto snarled in anger. His father wasn't taking him even remotely seriously, Kyuubi cloak or not. It was as if this was some sort of game to him, just like that stupid game he played with the other nobles and merchants.

Twisting his body in the air, Naruto positioned himself so that he collided with the tree feet first. Pushing off with enough force to splinter the bark, Naruto flew towards his father, chakra tail dancing in the wind behind him.

Minato caught the right haymaker his son aimed at his head, then the left kick aimed at his groin. Tilting his head he avoided the left punch, catching the fabric of his son's arm guard in his teeth when the blow reached its full extent.

'_Not bad.'_ Minato was forced to admit, '_Solid Genin work.'_

Minato almost missed it. Not to many opponents had extra limbs or tails, so the chakra tail that shot out from between his son's legs lunging for him nearly separated Minato's head from his shoulders. Minato released his son, dropping the boy towards the ground, gaining him precious milliseconds as he leaned back, the chakra tail slicing a small cut into Minato's chin as it soared overhead.

Naruto managed to get one foot underneath him before hitting the ground, back peddling a few steps before leaping into a back handspring to gain some distance.

"Damn it." Naruto swore, pulling up his pants leg and seeing a Hiraishin mark emblazoned on his leg.

Naruto released his pants leg, barely managing to side step his father's first attack, a lazy push kick that distorted the air. Kyuubi enhanced or not, Minato was the fastest known person on the planet, bar none. Naruto watched as his father shifted his hips, changing the push kick into a round kick as he rotated on his planted foot to carry himself directly towards where Naruto had dodged.

The kick took Naruto neatly around the stomach, knocking him back as if he'd been shot out of kunai launcher. He bounced three times on the ground before managing to right himself, sliding to a halt. Regaining his sense of equilibrium Naruto cast desperately around for his father, who'd vanished after he'd kicked him.

'_Above!'_ Naruto thought frantically, flipping through three quick handseals and diving into the ground just in time to avoid a drop kick from his father.

"Head hunter?" Minato asked the ground curiously. "I wasn't aware that they had started teaching that one to academy students."

Minato broke into a jog, following his Hiraishin mark traveling underground. He blinked in surprise when it suddenly split into fifteen separate signatures.

'_What?'_ Minato thought.

Five of the Narutos burst from the ground, assuming a defensive position as the other eight still in the earth split up and went in separate directions.

"Kage Bunshin?" Minato asked, doing his best to appear casual. His son had apparently been sticking his nose in the forbidden scroll when he wasn't looking. While it was very impressive that he was able to learn the jutsu when he wasn't even a genin yet, Naruto should have known better than sneaking information he wasn't privy to.

Without forming the seal Minato summoned ten clones of his own that split off to hunt down each of the Narutos, leaving the real Minato alone to deal with five in the clearing.

'_Dispel yourselves when you're done or you've found the real Naruto.' _Minato ordered his clones as they burst into being.

"Not a bad tactic." Minato complimented the five Narutos arrayed before him. "Forcing me to split my chakra in case the real one isn't among you. Given that you have more chakra than I-"

"Can it." One of the Narutos growled. "We're fighting. Talking isn't necessary."

Before his father could rebuke him about proper sparing etiquette, four of the Naruto's charged, rushing headfirst with the other three shadowing them.

Minato sighed.

'_And he was doing so well too.'_ He lamented, blocking the first Naruto's punch and dispelling it with a knife hand to the throat. Darting through the smoke, Minato snatched one of the Narutos by his lapel and spun him around, locking him under his arm while placing a paralyzing seal on the clone, causing his body to stiffen as he lost control of his muscles. The more clones he kept alive, the more Naruto's chakra was split and therefore weakened, turning the advantage of numbers Kage bunshin gave into a disadvantage. Reaching into his pouch and withdrawing two more tags, Minato leaped forward and planted them on two more Naruto's, each one hitting the ground with a dull thud and dispelling.

Letting the clone he still had underneath his arm drop to the ground carefully so as not to dispel, Minato sidestepped the third Naruto's attempt at a clothesline while simultaneously grabbing the first, rotating around the blow and breaking the clone's arm and dispelling it.

'_Glad that one was a clone.'_ Minato thought with relief. '_Naruto wouldn't have forgiven me if I had to bring him to the hospital like that.'_

Minato reeled slightly, memories of his eight clones fighting and dispelling Naruto's clones before dismissing themselves as they'd been ordered to do.

Through the haze of memories, Minato saw the Naruto farthest away shake his head slightly.

'_All of those clones and he only gets slightly dazed?'_ Minato thought in amazement.

"Kage Bunshin." Naruto said, forming the seal.

Two more clones sprang into being, each one going through hand seals along with the original.

"Wind Release: Wind bullet." The two Naruto's intoned.

The air in front of the three coalesced into a rotating orb of rotating wind. After a half second to gather power, Naruto fired the jutsu at his dazed father.

'_Not enough power to kill me, but certainly enough to knock me out for a few minutes. Very solid Chunin work.' _Minato thought with no small amount of pride, preparing to Hiraishin out of the way, but failing as a wave of dizziness left over from the clones overtook him once more.

Slightly staggered, Minato was forced to reach down and pick up the Naruto clone he'd wanted to keep alive and use it as a shield.

'_He used the clones to help him monitor rotation, chakra flow, and supply.'_ Minato thought, marveling at the ingenuity his son had shown at figuring out how to preform a jutsu he ordinarily wouldn't have been able to.

'_If he'd had a bit more chakra to increase the speed, he got me with that. Unfortunately he's played his hand and revealed the real him_. _Always pays to keep trump cards.'_ Minato thought as the jutsu penetrated the clone's heart.

Blood splashed against Minato's face as the jutsu pierced his son's chest, weakening the wind enough so that it simply washed against Minato's red stained pajamas. The two remaining clones vanished in clouds of smoke, their creator unable to sustain them. The red mantle of chakra that had previously been illuminating the forest vanished, leaving them both in darkness.

Minato watched in horror as the Naruto he held in his arms screamed so loud his voice went horse from the force. Blood pooled around the wound quickly, dripping onto Minato's pajamas in thick, warm streams.

'_He mixed himself in with the clones.'_ Minato thought numbly, oddly disconnected from the situation. _'Why would he do that? It's reckless… stupid.'_

Minato cried out as the world crashed against him once more.

He laid his whimpering son down onto the grass, kneeling at his side, young, blue eyes screwed shut from the pain, mouth twisted into a soundless grimace.

"No, no, no, no." Minato said frantically, channeling medical chakra to his hands, placing them above his son's chest, feeding chakra into the wound, his expression intent as he stared at his son's body as if to heal it with nothing more than will. He was no medic, but he had learned the basics, and stopping blood flow was something he could do, at least until the Kyuubi could patch up the hole. He couldn't heal Naruto and Hiraishin at the same time. If he stopped healing, then Naruto would die instantly. The demon would save his boy - his little Naruto - it had too. If it didn't, they would both die and the demon wouldn't want to die. It would save him. It would-

"Dad?" Naruto asked, his voice soft.

Minato clutched his son to his chest, propping his boy up on his folded knees as his traitorous heart leapt to stomach, eyes latching onto his child's blue orbs with a desperate intensity.

"I'm sorry. I didn't m-mean for it to go so f-far." Naruto was struggling for breath, each intake a tremendous effort. The healing wasn't _working, _and he couldn't just force this, not when it came to healing, because he could do more harm than good if he didn't know what he was doing, and he didn't.

He didn't know what to do to save him.

He couldn't save him.

"I-I didn't think…- I-I just didn't want to be an animal anymore. I just wanted to be h-human."

Naruto hiccupped slightly, trying to take in a breath. Minato curled close, stared into those blue eyes so much like his own, etched into his heart with every passing birthday, New Year and Christmas, the face lined with pain.

His son's eyelids drifted shut, his torn chest fell, and his breath slipped away from him and into the air in one fading, long sound that trailed into nothingness.

"Son?" Minato asked, shaking his son weakly. "Son, wake up. You gotta get up."

Tears cascaded down Minato's face and he shook his little boy once more.

"Son, we've got to go home."

Minato clutched his son's head to his chest and roared his grief to the heavens.

"Help!" He screamed, looking about the forest desperately, irrationally, searching for someone to come and save his son. Looking back down at his child's face, Minato moaned, bloodied fingers tenderly caressing a paling face.

"Anybody... help." The desperate father whispered, tears flowing unchecked down his face.

He pressing his forehead against his son's own, crying weakly as sobs wracked his body.

The world ceased to have meaning as Minato gazed into Naruto's deadened orbs. His son's blue stagnant pools stared back at him in silent accusation.

It was his fault.

He had killed his own son.

It was his fault.

It was his fault.

Minato stood on shaking legs, cradling Naruto's limp body in his arms.

"I'm sorry." Minato whispered through a raw throat, stumbling his way towards Konoha's roads.

He nearly tripped over one of his Hiraishin knives. It was cold and hard and utterly, utterly –

Useless.

"I'm so sorry." He said again.

**Line Break**

He buried his son in front of an oak. He couldn't remember how many times he'd seen his son reading underneath the trees he loved so much. The boy's blond hair dangle down in front of his eyes, getting in the way, only to be pushed away again by the breeze.

The air Minato breathed seemed to freeze in his lungs as he crouched at the edge of the grave, spread hands resting on the lip of the pit.

Naruto lay curled at the bottom of the pit, thin arms wrapped around his legs. His eyes were closed, but he didn't look peaceful: the lines of agony on his hollow face were there to stay, tokens of remembrance for the terrible manner of his death. He was skinny and silent and nothing like the bolt of bright energy he had loved.

The stars were harsh and distant above, separate.

He wished he could separate himself from the grief coiled around his spine.

He let chakra flow from his fingers into the earth, shivering as the ground shuddered beneath him, and with a groan the sides of the gaping hole slid together, hiding his son's beloved, bloody face from view, to sleep in silence forever.

He groped behind himself until his fingers touched hard wood, dragging the makeshift sign forward- made of bits of driftwood from the broken ships sinking in the bay- and set it upright at the head of the grave.

Naruto pounded it into the earth with the hilt of a kunai, the itchiness of the mud drying on his skin a dim annoyance, held at bay by the ball of ice in his chest that was expanding to encompass everything inside him.

Not even the tears trailing clean tracks through the encrusted blood and dirt on his face were warm.

A thick, choked sob burst from his throat and scraped it raw as he knelt in the mud above where Naruto lay entombed.

The scratching of the kunai against the wood shuddered through his shaking fingers -not shaking with cold or illness but only grief that crawled inside him and left everything blurry and silent- and up his arms as he cut into the splintered remnant of Naruto's life.

'Naruto's battlefield.'

.

.

.

Heruko could never know of this. It would destroy her just as it had destroyed him.

Minato looked up at the sky, whispering, "Kushina, if only you could see me now, see how I've failed."

**Line Break**

It was only a quick flash back to the house, but to Minato's grief stricken mind it felt like an eternity. The cherry-red door loomed before him like the maw of hell, covered in his sins. Behind it he could hear his daughter pattering about the kitchen, going about getting herself a nighttime snack.

'_It used to be a weekend family tradition.'_ Minato remembered. '_We'd all watch T.V late and then get cookies and milk before going to bed.'_

Everything had been so simple then.

The door opened and Heruko stuck her head out, "Daddy?" She asked, looking around the empty walkway. Seeing no one she closed the door and went about her snack preparations.

Minato watched his daughter retreat from where he'd leapt to the second floor above. He was cover in blood… she couldn't see that, anything but that.

He opened the window and crawled through. Quickly ridding himself of his clothes, he threw them away. He would have burned them but… too soon.

'_Am I hiding from my judgment? Is it for the greater good that I act? That I protect myself? Is it for Konoha?'_

"_You wouldn't be Hokage if you were any different." _Naruto's words came back to him. "_That's not for me. If I had friends maybe it'd be all right, but I don't. And I hate it. The village doesn't like me very much. I trouble sleeping at night… I have bad dreams. I wake up, scared. Sometimes it takes me a while to remember where I am. I've considered what it'd be like… to release the Kyuubi and prove them right, but that won't solve anything."_

Minato remembered how Naruto couldn't even look him in the eye as he continued,

"_I don't like it here. I'm tired of being afraid. I've decided not to stay. I doubt they'll make a much of a fuss. Not for a demon like me."_

"You were human to me." Minato said softly into the darkness of his room. "Wasn't that enough?"

He would soldier on, Minato decided as he slid on a fresh pair of clothes. He's seen war, dealt with loss, and Konoha needed him. Something was going on in the world, a stirring.

Many S-Class ninja had been going missing, disappearing from the face of the earth for no discernable reason. No bounty was ever collected and no bodies were found. They just… vanished.

"Daddy?"

Minato nearly leapt out of his skin.

Whirling to face his daughter standing at the door, a plate of cookies in her hand as well as a large glass of milk.

She looked around the room with her large, child's eyes.

"Where's brother?" She asked.

"He's not home." Minato said, the lie nearly breaking him.

"When he will he come home?" She asked.

Minato stuttered for a moment, mind failing uselessly for some reasonable excuse that'd save his youngest daughter pain.

"Not for a while. He's going to study in other lands." He lied weakly.

"Oh." She said, gazing at her father.

"Daddy? Are you crying?"

'_Why won't she leave me alone?'_ Minato wondered, hating himself for the thought.

"I'm sorry, sweetie. I was just sad to see Naruto leave without saying goodbye."

Heruko's face grew upset as well.

"That was awfully mean of brother." She said with childish indigence, twisting her face up to match. "He didn't say goodbye to me either."

"Go eat your cookies then go to bed, Heruko. It's a long day tomorrow." Minato said, wanting to be alone.

No.

What he wanted to do was curl up and hug his daughter to him until the day he died, but he couldn't do that. If he did, she'd ask questions. Questions he couldn't… wouldn't, answer.

"Aren't you going to eat cookies with me?" She asked, looking crestfallen and she held up the cookies towards her father.

"No." Minato replied. "Not tonight."

Heruko seemed wounded by his words, but left anyway. Her pajamas trailing along the floor behind her as she walked away.

He couldn't eat the cookies. Naruto would have wanted cookies as well, and he couldn't face that reality. That…

Minato collapsed onto his bed, his heart spilling out over the sheets, falling down the bedspread, and pooling on the floor.

He didn't want to think, didn't want to move, didn't want to exist.

'_Heruko needs me. The village needs me.'_

He repeated these two facts over and over in his head, desperately wishing for them to be true. Sleep took him. Like the Shinigami's cloak it wrapped him in a dark embrace and consumed him. Leaving a shell of the great man he used to be behind.

**End of Chapter Five**

Comments and reviews are greatly appreciated.

Yours truly,

Infernezor.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Hi, I'm changing how I write these chapters. I know Its been a while since I've updated this story. I could spin you a yarn about how college has been distracting me, how my social life is currently in a dreadful state of disrepair, and they'd all be relatively true. However, the reason I haven't updated this story is much simpler. I haven't felt like it, until now that is. The writing quality is a bit sub-par my ability now (this was written quite some time ago) but I don't have the patience to go back and correct things. So, I did some minor revision and am now delivering it to you.**

"What does it mean to be called "lord"? I'll assume you've never had the honor, since I doubt any of you happen to be British royalty. (And, if by chance you are, then let me say, "Hello, your Majesty! Welcome to my stupid book. Can I borrow some cash?")"

- Brandon Sanderson

**Chapter Six**

**The Calm Before the Storm**

The Kyuubi roared in anger as Minato continued to thwart his efforts in healing the damage he'd caused in his host. Human chakra and demonic chakra, without a filter, did not mix well; you might as well have been trying to mix oil and water. If the Minato had been thinking clearly he would have probably realized that he was hindering, not helping. However, he wasn't, and it was costing them their lives.

"**Stupid Human!"** He spat, pacing the cage in fury. **"You have no idea what you're doing! I can't save him if you're fucking him up with that infernal chakra of yours!"**

Kurama sat down, his eyes boring holes in the seal that kept him imprisoned. It would take him to his death if the human died. The greatest demon of the nine was not about to take that lying down, not by a long shot. He still had options available to him.

Nine tails plunged into the depths of his cage. The degrading seal was no longer a match for his powers so long as he didn't try and influence anything outside of his warden.

"**The boy isn't dead yet." **The Kyuubi growled. **"His mind is still in here somewhere. Hopefully it'll be reasonable."**

The boy's heart had failed and the mind was following in its footsteps. The human brain could survive for four to seven minutes after the heart stops. With the chakra still lingering in the boy's system from their fight and Uzumaki's natural resilience, Kurama had more time, an hour tops, unless he could get the boy to see sense for once in his pathetic life.

"**There you are."**

The tails emerged from the ground on the other side of the fence that separated them, dragging Naruto's limp body from their depths.

"**Wake up you pitiful sack of flesh!"** The Kyuubi roared at the twelve year old suspended in front of him.

Nothing.

Kyuubi hissed in frustration, sending waves of chakra down through his tails. The seal rose to stop him, but with the boy's fading life force the seal's power was weakening. Weakening just enough to allow him to give the boy a good jolt of chakra.

Naruto inhaled sharply as his eyes flew open.Blinking twice, the boy's eyes latched onto the demon.

"Kyuubi." Naruto stated, his eyes hardening.

He'd trained to use the demon's chakra, but he'd never met the creature before now. All the times he'd practiced the situation had been carefully controlled.

"**You're dead, human."** Kurama stated, not mincing facts. He didn't have time to beat around the bush. It had taken him nearly forty minutes to find the boy's mind and drag it to the surface. He was running out of time.

"I don't feel dead." Naruto responded, narrowing his eyes at the twenty story tall demon fox.

"**That's because most of your nerves have shut down from lack of oxygen."** The Demon explained. **"It doesn't help that your fool of a father is burying you."**

Naruto blinked in surprise. He really didn't feel dead, but then again he didn't exactly know what being dead felt like. He'd never been dead before to compare experiences with.

"Lets' assume-" Naruto began only to be cut off by the Kyuubi.

"**Look, we don't have time to be playing word games. You don't like me, and I most certainly hate you, but we're running out of time. You picked a fight with an opponent that was far beyond you, screwed up, and got yourself killed. I might be able to save us both, I just need you to loosen this seal."**

"No." Naruto said evenly. "I won't fall for your tricks, demon."

The Kyuubi slammed his body against the rails, shaking the still bound human slightly with his tails in his frustration.

"**Fool boy!"** He screamed. **"The seal has already weakened enough to where if I wanted I could crush what little remains of you."** To emphasis his point Kurama squeezed the boy bound in his tails.

Naruto's eyes widened in surprise as the tails forced the 'air' from his lungs and caused his bones to groan in protest. It was a trick. It had to be. He couldn't be dying. He hadn't even kissed a girl yet, an odd thought to be having considering the circumstances.

"What do I need to do?" Naruto asked weakly, struggling to breathe.

"**Simply say, 'save me.' And mean it."** The Kyuubi said lowly.

Naruto hesitated a moment, weighing his options. His father had told him that the seal was strong enough that he never had to fear the demon inside of him unless he willed it. Well, the Kyuubi was clearly able to harm him now, so did that mean it was telling the truth?

"Save me." The words fell from Naruto's mouth like lead weights, each one sounding out his fate as they hit the ground.

There was a crack as the seal linking the gates together tore slightly and blackened.

Kurama wasted no time as he buried Naruto underground once again. The runt would have nothing useful to contribute anymore. Naruto had played his part, now it was his turn.

The Kyuubi surged, bring all the power he could force through the seal to bear. It wasn't much, the boy wasn't in danger, hell he wasn't even alive, but hopefully it would be enough to save both of their lives.

First things first, Kurama suspended Naruto's brain in a matrix of chakra, keeping the neurons firing and synapsis in tact. The boy could be crippled for all Kurama cared but so long as he survived, Naruto would learn to deal with it.

Once he'd ensured the brain's safety, Kurama turned his attention to the boy's heart. Wind jutsu were frustratingly destructive. Normally, he was all for destruction, but at the moment he was cursing his host for his proclivity towards the element. The bullet had torn its jagged path through the left anterior descending artery all the way to the right atrium, almost bifurcating the pulmonary artery. This delicate work would take time to heal. He could keep the boy alive, barely, by allowing Naruto's instincts to govern breathing and so on while he worked. He'd have to kick start the process by having Naruto worm his way out of the ground to get to air. Hopefully that fool of a Kage would come back and realize his son wasn't dead and help.

'_**Never count on the intelligence of humans.'**_The Kyuubi rumbled as he went to work.

Words to live by, he felt.

**Line Break**

Naruto awoke, jolting upright, his breath coming in sharp, jagged intakes.

He was sitting in a cart that was making its way down the sandy path of a desert, an angry red sun beating its eternal fury down on his face. A gentle breeze alerted him that the only thing covering his modesty was a coarse, burlap blanket.

'_Where am I?'_

The last thing he remembered was arguing with his father. He'd decided to leave then… nothing. He drew a blank after that. Something must have happened because he certainly didn't remember falling asleep in a cart.

"Finally awake are you, mate?" A cheerful voice greeted him.

Turning around, Naruto saw a kid no older than himself, sitting at the helm of the horse drawn carriage.

The kid was dressed in a loose fitting gray shirt, more sack than shirt, which matched the trousers he kept latched at his waist with a rope. He wore a wide brimmed farmers hat that perched on his head as proudly as any hat could.

"Where am I?" Naruto asked, his voice hoarse.

"Just outside of Suna." The kid responded, turning back and winking at him before resetting his focus on steering. "You've been out for a couple of weeks. Quite some job keeping you fixed up, I might add."

"Why am I here?" Naruto asked groggily.

"That's a great question." The kid responded sagely. "Why are any of us here? Philosophers have been arguing about that point for a very long time. Last I checked they hadn't gotten anywhere, but I could be mistaken, it's been a while since I've bothered."  
The kid turned and regarded Naruto through narrowed eyes.

"You aren't a philosopher, are you?"

"No." Naruto responded, confused. "Why would you ask that?"

"Because," He chirped cheerily, once again returning to steering. "I found you mostly dead, buried underneath a funny sign. Your name wouldn't happen to be fishcake would it?"

Naruto spluttered indignantly.

"It means maelstrom."

"Ahh, but I like fishcake better. It's funny." The kid said, laughing merrily.

"Well, what's yours then?" Naruto said, putting side the fact that he'd apparently been buried for the present. He had his honor to defend. He wasn't dead so that could wait for the moment.

"Ahhh, Hayashi." He responded, rubbing the back of his head, mussing up his short, brown hair.

Naruto snorted.

"Early death? What kind of a name is that?"

"Mine!" He snapped, not turning around though Naruto could see that the tips of his ears had turned red from embarrassment. "Sides' most people just call me Jango."

"Jango? How is that any better?" Naruto asked, still a little sore from being called a fishcake.

Jango shrugged.

"Dunno, I made it up myself."

"Well…" Naruto said slowly. "What does it mean?"

"Crazy." Jango said flatly. "But playfully so."

Naruto's face deadpanned.

"That doesn't make sense. Being mad doesn't make you playful."

Jango was quiet for a few moments before he said, "Us crazy people don't have to make sense. If we made sense, we wouldn't be crazy. Crazy people are the outliers in the grand statistical, muffleball of a world we live in."

"Jango?" asked Naruto. He needed a new subject, fast, this one was giving him a headache.

"Hmm?"

"Why was I buried?"

"I haven't the faintest clue." Jango replied airily. "When I found you, you were only mostly dead, half stuck out of a hole in the ground. I thought to myself, 'What a strange place to leave a perfectly good human' and then carried you back and stuck you in my cart. Now here you are."

Naruto had the distinct impression that Jango was lying to him. But, what could he do about it? He had no right to demand answers. Apparently, he was lucky to be alive.

'_But why should I have been dead in the first place?'_

Nothing was making sense at the moment. Naruto hoped dearly that it would soon, or else he might just give up and go insane.

"Strange things have been going on lately." Jango said, changing the subject.

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked, shifting himself a bit in the cramped wagon.

"Well Konoha's been in a bit of an uproar lately. It would seem as though the Hokage, or whatever their leader is called, made the rather controversial decision to send his son out to study in the big, wide world all alone. It would seem as though this boy possessed something rather valuable in nature that it got the council rather upset about their Hokage not informing them before hand. I'm bad with politicking so I haven't a clue what's going on, but I thought to myself, 'Hayashi, you're in over your little monk head here. Best you get out while you've still got your pockets full of money.'"

Naruto blinked.

"Don't you mean, 'While you've still got your head on your shoulders?'"

"No. Big cities don't take your life. They take your money and then let others take your life when you can't afford to live there anymore." Jango said jovially. "Survival for the less intelligent 101."

Naruto thought about it for a moment. It made some kind of sense, in a twisted cynical kind of way.

"You must have been a terrible ninja." Jango commented, the remark seemingly coming from nowhere.

"What?" Naruto asked intelligently.

Jango reached down under his seat, fumbling for a moment before pulling up what Naruto recognized as the orange pants he'd been wearing last night, dirtied and speckled with blood.

"What about it?" Naruto asked, eyeing the blood curiously.

"The color. Were you the bait or something?" Jango asked, still not looking at Naruto, preferring to keep his eyes firmly secured on the road. "I mean, what master of stealth, sabotage and sticking one's nose where it doesn't belong wears this particularly visible color?"

Naruto's expression darkened somewhat.

"You may insult me, defame my land, and ridicule lint, but never," Naruto pointed a dirty finger at Jango, "under any circumstances insult the color orange. It is sacred."

Jango blinked.

"Is this going to define our relationship?"

"No." Naruto replied stoically.

"Jango?"

"That's still my name." Jango answered cheerily. "Use it too much and you'll wear it out."

"Why am I naked and wrapped in what, I presume, is one of your blankets?"  
"We traded. Our first trade. I'm getting all teary eyed over it." Said Jango, wiping away a fake tear.

Naruto gave him a long look, doing his absolute best to covey his displeasure in spite of his current state of undress.

"This," Naruto said heavily once he'd failed to garner a reaction from Hayashi, "I feel may define our, hopefully, brief relationship."

**End of Chapter Six**


End file.
